My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
The Sweet sound of the Church Bell calling
all to worship.
How comforting and inspiring is the sweet sound of the church bell. Many of us remember, especially when we were young on Sunday morning hearing the church bell of the local parish ringing as the divine services were about to commence. And in some cases where there were more than one church in vicinity one could hear one bell after another calling all to worship. However, church bells were rung not only to call the faithful to worship, but to inform those absent from divine services of the various important liturgical moments of the divine services. The bells also were rung upon the arrival of the local bishop who entered the church to officiate in the Divine Liturgy. The Orthodox Christian tradition there are different types of bell-ringing for various religious services. There is a slow rhythmic unhurried striking of one bell which is rung for the announcing of the beginning of the divine services such as the 9th Hour, Vespers (evening), Compline, Orthros (Matins), Doxology and beginning of the Divine Liturgy, etc. Church bells are used especially during Holy and Great Week for the different solemn processions. Bells are used also at funeral services.
Bells were and are used as a signal that something of significance has happened in the life of the church or even country. I recall when the church bells were rung at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School in Boston, Mass. when President Kennedy was assassinated and all the clergy, seminarians, and professors were called to conduct a special prayer service for the President and for the country.
Bells are rung on the great Liturgical Feast-Days of the ecclesiastical year, such as Pascha, Pentecost, Holy Nativity of Christ etc. Bells are also rung for non-liturgical events such as the outbreak of war or peace, of general public morning and even at times of imminent danger such us tornado warnings, floods, fire and other emergencies.
The tradition of ringing church bells dates back to 400 A.D. Our Eastern Orthodox Church has a long and complex history of bell ringing and in the Russian Orthodox tradition particularly is very sophisticated and complex.
Bells In the Old Testament Tradition
Bells are mentioned in the Holy Bible during a description of the high priest’s robe. The Book of Exodus instructs that ‘bells of gold’ were to be attached to the hem of the high priest’s robe so that the people could hear the high priest as he entered and exited the Holy of Holies (Exodus 28:31-35). The Holy of Holies was the most sacred space in the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple, housing such holy items as the Ark of the Covenant.
Whether the tradition is grounded in truth or not, we can see that as early as the Old Testament days, the sound of bell ringing meant good news for God’s people because the ringing indicated that the people’s sins had been atoned for in a manner acceptable to God.
Church bells remind us of God’s presence and the believer is reassured that he or she is not alone and that He is always with us at of joy, as well as sorrow. Bells are sometimes referred as "singing icons" because they establish the accousting space of an Orthodox church just as painted holy icons and hymnography define its visual and noetic space respectively.
The use of bells is symbolic of the proclamation of the Gospel. Another instrument used in the Orthodox Christian Tradition, especially the Monastic, is the use of the SEMANTRON. The quieter and simpler sound of the semantron is understood to symbolize the Old Testament Prophets, for it is the symbol only of a coming event whereas the ringing of the bells is spread far into the air symbolizing the annunciation of the Gospel throughout the world.
The semantron (Gk. σήμαντρον) is a percussion instrument used mostly in monasteries to summon the monastics to prayer or at the start o procession. It was also known as simantra (Gk. σήμαντρα) xylon (ξύλον) and talanto (τάλαντο). The instrument comes in three main varieties: portable, consisting of a long wooden plank held in the player’s non-dominant hand, and struck with a wooden mallet in the dominant; a larger, heavier fixed timber block suspended by chains and struck by one or two mallets; and a fixed metal variety, often horseshoe-shaped and struck by a metal mallet.
The semantra are usually suspended by chains from a peg in the proavlion (porch of the catholicon) or perhaps outside the refectory (trapeza) door, or on a tree in the courtyard eliciting loud, somewhat musical sounds (κρούσμα, krousma). Although simple, the instrument nonetheless produces a strong resonance and a variety of intonations, depending on the thickness of the place struck and the intensity of the force used.
While continuing in daily use at monasteries for the various services the semantra have played a long-lasting part in Orthodox history. Their origin has been traced to at least the beginning of the 6th century, when the semantron had replaced the trumpet as the agent of convocation in the monasteries in Palestine and Egypt, including Saint Catherine’s Sinai; the rhythms struck on wood were soon vested with the aural memory of rhythmic blasts from earlier trumpets, an iconography of trumpeting that was eventually transferred to the bells.
Of Levantine and Egyptian origin, its use flourished in Greece and specifically on Mount Athos before spreading among the Eastern Orthodox regions i.e., Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Hercegovina and Northern Macedonia. It both predates and substitutes for bells, which were, according to one account, first introduced to the East in 865 by the Venetians, who gave a dozen to Emperor Michael III, being used to call worshippers to prayer.
In Byzantium, the use of bells did not really gather momentum until after the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). and at the 1453 Fall of Constantinople semantra still outnumbered bells by a five-to-one ratio. One reason why semantra continued to be used in Southern Europe in particular is that the ringing of bells was outlawed during the Ottoman enslavement and rule and islamic laws, forcing monasteries to use the semantron instead, the practice then became traditional. Larger and smaller semantra have been used, the smaller being sounded first followed by the larger, then by those of iron. Theodore Balsamon (12th century) in a treatise on the subject compares the sounding of the little. great and iron semantra to the preaching of the Law and of the Gospel.
It has also been said that symbolically the striking of the wooden semantron symbolizes the sound of the building of the Ark by Noah and the calling and gathering of the animals that came to find safety in the Ark until the Great Flood was over. Currently it is used to call the faithful Orthodox Christians to prayer and worship as well as their spiritual safety from the danger from the new flood of evil surrounding and threatening the world and all of humanity.
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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere with agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
The Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethos 