Patriarch Consecrates Bells for Harvard

July 24, 2007

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Boston Globe

Wire Service: AP

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/07/24/patriarch_consecrates_bells_for_harvard/

MOSCOW --Patriarch Alexy II on Tuesday consecrated 18 newly cast brass bells destined for Harvard University in a trade that will see the originals returned to Russia nearly 80 years after they were saved from Josef Stalin's religious purges.

The originals have hung for decades in the towers at Lowell House and Harvard Business School's Baker Library.

American industrialist Charles R. Crane bought the bells from the Soviet Union in 1930, saving them from being melted down in purges that saw thousands of monks executed and churches and monasteries destroyed or turned into prisons, orphanages and warehouses.

"Without exaggeration, they can be called the best church art in modern history," Alexy said in a televised address after a consecration ceremony with clouds of incense and priests in golden robes.

The Russian Orthodox patriarch called the replica bells a "worthy replacement" for the original ensemble. "The bells will be sent on the same historic path that their predecessors took," he said.