church bells

[hungrytiger]

This my sound like an odd question, but in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the role of the person who rings the church bells limited to males?

[Khaleas]

I don't know if the actual bellringing is limited to males but I know they had a course in bell ringing at the monastery in Finland and there was some women there too. It's pretty heavy to do (I'm fairly strong but I can't budge the bell at our chapel, we've got computerized ones at church) so that's maybe why it's been a 'male thing'.

[hungrytiger]

I don't know if the actual bellringing is limited to males but I know they had a course in bell ringing at the monastery in Finland and there was some women there too. It's pretty heavy to do (I'm fairly strong but I can't budge the bell at our chapel, we've got computerized ones at church) so that's maybe why it's been a 'male thing'.
Thanks. I hadn't thought of that.

[choirfiend]

I rang them when I was a child, along with the other girl at our parish.

[hungrytiger]

I rang them when I was a child, along with the other girl at our parish.

Ok. So, girls are allowed to do the ringing too. Thanks for clearing that up for me. :)

[Orthocat]

yes, the only stipulation is you must have a hunch on your back....


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/MartyFeldman.jpg

[Dewi Sant]

^_^


Here at my university college chapel of Saint David of Wales (pre-schism saint) we have just started re-using the bell to call people for morning, midday and evening prayer.

The college chapel is of anglican tradition, but, the actual mass is very roman/orthodox.

We have a male bellringer (volunteer), but that is only because he was the only person who came who can ring bells, though, I may be having a go tomorrow. We only have one bell, it is hung outside, and the whole mechanism and pulley is exposed on the roof of the chapel (right next to the organ loft)....so, when we get high winds and heavy rain, it'll make bellpulling quite interesting.

For prayers we ring for 5 mins, but, for Holy Eucharist, we will ring for 15 mins, which I am sure the students in the nearby buildings will appreciate :P.




Sorry for going on and on and on.


Personally, I can't see any problem with female bellringers.

[Greg the byzantine]

It truly depends on where the bell is located and I am not being silly this time. If the Location of the bell string (I guess you would call it that, but I think you can get what I am referring to) is behind the Altar than logically it can't be a woman ringing it (unless in a woman's monastery where women are allowed behind the Altar). If the bell string is outside the Altar I guess anybody who know's how to get the spacing right can do it.

[Breaking Babylon]

Churchs bells are an interesting topic. Father Mark was telling me once that in one of his old parishes, they had two very large bells, which were actually annointed with chrism and named Michael and Gabriel.

Learn something new every day. :)

[copticorthodoxy]

I love the church bells so much , it make me very happy
do you ring it manually by ropes or by electric keys ??
The church bells are common in the Eastern Orthodox , Oriental Orthodox and Catholic , so any one here know when the church used it for the first time ? who found it in the churches ?

[HandmaidenOfGod]

My parish's bells are electronically controlled.

Anyone know if bells were part of Jewish liturgical worship?

[copticorthodoxy]

bump

[Mary of Bethany]

Interesting old thread. My parish doesn't have bells, and I've never heard bells rung in any of the parishes I've been to.

Can someone please tell me when they are rung? Are they part of the Liturgy? Or are they used to call people to the services?

Thanks.


Mary

[Dewi Sant]

This is random but, there is a BBC programme (only about 10 mins) devoted to the church bells on Sunday.

Each week a different church is nominated and their bells are exposed through the magic of radio broadcasting.

I must say, I heard some beautiful bell ringing at the foot of York Minster on Easter Monday. They were being rung to the tune of "Christ is Risen, Allelulia, Allelulia, Allelulia".


Electronic bells?
Hmmmm, makes me think of a cartoon I saw which showed the Palace of Westminster's Bell Tower (I suppose you call it "Big Ben" :sigh:) with a digital face.
I think I am wrong in assuming it is St. Stephen's tower as I think that's the one over the central foyer. I'm not sure if the Bell Tower has a name.

[fuerein]

Electronic bells?
Hmmmm, makes me think of a cartoon I saw which showed the Palace of Westminster's Bell Tower (I suppose you call it "Big Ben" :sigh:) with a digital face.
I think I am wrong in assuming it is St. Stephen's tower as I think that's the one over the central foyer. I'm not sure if the Bell Tower has a name.

I don't know if everyone means this, but I think of electronic bells as meaning the ringers are set to mechanically ring the bells rather than having people manually ringing the bells... Then again my University did have a "Bell Tower" only it had no bells (at least I don't think it had any bells) rather it had a CD player and some speakers. The bell tower was supposed to chime on the hour and on at least one occasion some students broke into the tower and replaced the bells CD with regular music. Yeah administration wasn't pleased.

[Greg the byzantine]

I don't know if everyone means this, but I think of electronic bells as meaning the ringers are set to mechanically ring the bells rather than having people manually ringing the bells... Then again my University did have a "Bell Tower" only it had no bells (at least I don't think it had any bells) rather it had a CD player and some speakers. The bell tower was supposed to chime on the hour and on at least one occasion some students broke into the tower and replaced the bells CD with regular music. Yeah administration wasn't pleased.

Right. They are still bells except there is nobody physically there pulling the ropes, it's done by a machine. That's what I have seen in general. I have seen the cd/speaker combo but not in a church.

Right now our church doesn't have any bells, but hopefully the new building will have a set.

[Kristos]

http://www.russianbells.com/history/history1.html

[RobNJ]

The bell tower was supposed to chime on the hour and on at least one occasion some students broke into the tower and replaced the bells CD with regular music. Yeah administration wasn't pleased.

Back when I was a protestant, our church had a PA system & computerized WAV files for the bells (Old computers, that were too slow for modern apps) Sunday afternoon, a Korean congreagation used the building. Someone flipped the wrong switch in the sound room. You could hear a VERY loud, long sermon, in Korean, ALL over town ^_^

[fuerein]

Back when I was a protestant, our church had a PA system & computerized WAV files for the bells (Old computers, that were too slow for modern apps) Sunday afternoon, a Korean congreagation used the building. Someone flipped the wrong switch in the sound room. You could hear a VERY loud, long sermon, in Korean, ALL over town ^_^
Kinda reminds me of when to a Catholic School. There was a protestant church about a block away, both churches used similar mic systems. Several times we were sitting in Mass and the signal from the protestant church's mics would get picked up by the Catholic receivers and broadcast throught the Catholic church's sound system.

[authiodionitist]

The bells are for before/after services and during the Paschal procession and during the recitation of the Creed.

Creed gets 12 rings on the Blogoslovest (Annunciator), one for each article of the Creed.

Pascha you run a full "Rejoice" tone pattern.

Before after services only one system is used, sometimes in sync with another system of bells in a simple pattern.



Bells get names when they are chrismated. And we kneel to pray during their chrismation!

[Mary of Bethany]

The bells are for before/after services and during the Paschal procession and during the recitation of the Creed.

Creed gets 12 rings on the Blogoslovest (Annunciator), one for each article of the Creed.

Pascha you run a full "Rejoice" tone pattern.

Before after services only one system is used, sometimes in sync with another system of bells in a simple pattern.



Bells get names when they are chrismated. And we kneel to pray during their chrismation!

Thank you! I hope we have bells when our new temple is built.

Mary

[Mary of Bethany]

Back when I was a protestant, our church had a PA system & computerized WAV files for the bells (Old computers, that were too slow for modern apps) Sunday afternoon, a Korean congreagation used the building. Someone flipped the wrong switch in the sound room. You could hear a VERY loud, long sermon, in Korean, ALL over town ^_^

We share property (separate buildings) with a Black Baptist congregation, and once their Pastor's booming voice, preaching a very enthusiastic sermon, came through our speakers during Vespers. :D

Mary