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Ceremony of exchanging St. Daniel's historical bells to be held in the U.S.A.

Moscow, July 2, Interfax - The ceremony of signing an agreement on exchanging St. Daniel historical bells to their exact copies made in Russia will be held on July 8 in Harvard University, the U.S.A.

The last bell of the St. Daniel's historical ensemble will be taken off from the university tower the same day, press-service of the Svyaz Vremyon Foundation has reported Interfax-Religion on Wednesday. The foundation has undertaken financial and organizational work on bringing the historical bells back to the monastery's belfry.

The oldest in ensemble Tsarsky bell, 523 kg, will be dismantled and then honored guests will have a chance to ring it. Among them are the Svyaz Vremyon guardian council chairman Viktor Vekselberg, St. Daniel's Monastery father superior Archimandrite Alexy (Polikarpov), Harvard University President Drew Faust, Russia's Permanent UN Representative Vitaly Churkin and others.

"The bells have become a symbol of cultural an historical intercommunity between the U.S.A. and Russia. Now when they are coming back to Russia, they will keep the memories of their stay in Harvard and will ring to witness to the friendship between our countries," Vekselberg is quoted as saying by the Svyaz Vremyon foundation press-service.

Harvard visitors will have a unique opportunity to look at two bells ensembles at once: the new one manufactured at the Vera plant in Voronezh and historical St. Daniel's ensemble except for the Budnichny bell, which was dismantled from the tower of Harvard business-school earlier and brought back to Russia on September 12, 2007.

Archimandrite Alexy will celebrate a festival Orthodox liturgy on occasion of the ceremony, which will be the first Orthodox service conducted on the territory of Harvard University.

The historical bells will be taken to New York after the ceremony and then travel further to Russia by sea. The bells return route almost follows their way from Russia to the U.S.A.

Eighteen bells of St. Daniel's monastery hardly survived the 1930s and were sold abroad at the price of metal.

Professor Thomas Wittemore of Harvard saved the unique bells on instruction of American businessman Charles Crane who was interested in Russia. Since then St. Daniel's bells have been placed in Harvard University, where some buildings were redone to welcome them.

The Russian bells have ringed for 15 minutes each Sunday or national holiday. They also ring before the local football team, a University's 'shrine,' plays. According to Harvard graduates, the bells have become intrinsic to the university life so they decided to replace them with the exact replicas made in Russia, after the originals return home.

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