One of the amazing things about traveling is the opportunity to experience new sights. We often highlight the importance of the things we have seen here in Russia. However, we have also had the unique opportunity to use some of our other senses. Certainly, I have been using my sense of taste extensively to try a myriad of delicious foods. In Suzdal, we had the opportunity to listen to the beautiful, timeless music of the bells at the monastery of Saint Euthymius. The monastery was built in the 14th century to protect Suzdal’s northern boundaries. The bell tower itself (from whence the bells are rung) was built in the 1590s  and today houses seventeen bells, which are rung five times daily. The bells are not original (all except for one having been destroyed in the 1930s). Nonetheless, the beautiful music of these bells attracts many visitors daily to marvel at their unique sound.

I was curious about Russian Orthodox church bells after hearing this music and decided to do a bit of digging to investigate further. Luckily for me (and anyone else who is interested) the Typicon For Church Bell Ringing, the Orthodox Church’s official guide for the ringing of church bells was translated into English in 2003 and provides plenty of information on this subject. (For those interested, the entire document can be accessed here). According to the Typicon, Orthodox bells are rung for four reasons: calling believers to service, expressing the triumph of the Church, announcing to the faithful the most important moments in a service, and “strengthening Christians in piety and faith by its sound, which is alloyed with divine grace to disperse and destroy the forces of cruelty and of demonic suggestion, and to becalm dumb beasts and all of nature, and to turn them to the good of humanity.” Thus, the bells are not rung merely to signify the time of day but are themselves endowed with divine power.

According to the Typicon, the sound of the Orthodox bells differs from other kinds of bells in that they rely on semantrons and rhythmic pealing. If your knowledge of monastic instruments is, like mine, lacking, a semantron is a percussion instrument made out of wood and iron. It is the rhythmic variation created by semantrons and the bells that produces the sounds characteristic of Russian Orthodox bells. We are typically unaccustomed to these sounds because most Western bells rely on variation in melody and not rhythm. Certainly, there is an enchanting quality to the bells in Suzdal that makes listening to these bells a very special experience indeed. 

For more information and to see the sources I used in writing this post, visit:
http://suzdal.org.ru/Arhitect/spaso.htm (in Russian)
http://jdombstravels.com/monastery-of-saint-euthymius/ (in English)
http://www.russianbells.com/ringing/typikon-bellringing.pdf (in English)