The Return of the Danilov Bells - Being Part of History (Part Two)

I became involved with the Danilov Bell return process by accident. In my quest to visit numerous sites of Holy Russian Orthodoxy while in the country, I happened to be perusing a Russian website that lists not only the Liturgical Calendar in Old (as in Old Rite calendar, making the current date about September 1, 7516...don't worry, I don't really understand it either) and New Calendar, but also all of the churches in operation in present day Russia. (In case you are interested, the website is http://days.pravoslavie.ru/ ...mostly helpful if you can read Russian, the English portion of the website only contains articles and not the interesting stuff on churches).

As I browsed the "monasteries" section (Ru.: "Монастыри и подворья Москвы") I happened upon the website of Danilov Monastery, located about 5 metro stops away from my Smolenskaya apartment, slightly south of Moscow's Garden Circle. I was mostly looking to attend another monastic Divine Liturgy, as I had already attended one at Donskoy Monastery the week before and thoroughly enjoyed it (A brief note: Monastic services tend to flow slightly faster than the average Russian Orthodox Church service. This is likely a result of the nearly daily celebration of Divine Liturgy, Matins and Vespers by the Monastic Communities there.) Upon viewing the Monastery's website, I found a brief article on their "News" section (on the Russian version of the website, once again the English website is somewhat lacking) stating that there would be a ceremony the following day at 4pm to receive the Danilov Bells from Harvard University.

I immediately decided that I was going, I had only one class the following day. Furthermore, РГГУ, where I am studying is on the same Metro line as the Monastery, so the commute would not be an issue. At the time, however, there was one setback: the official ceremony, celebrated following Divine Liturgy would take place on Friday, September 12, and I had two classes. I somewhat nervously called my Moscow adviser hoping to find some way out of them, which I did, as she noted most of the teachers at the University would have little or no problem with an Orthodox Christian wanting to attend a major Orthodox event in Moscow.

My mind now at ease, I went to the first ceremony on a bleak 45 degree day at around 3:45pm. I entered the main square of the Monastery itself somewhat confused; I barely knew where I was going, nor did I know where exactly the congregation would "meet" the bells. The amount of people in the square (at that time about 50) and a small gathering of monastics quickly put my mind at ease. As it was cold, I entered the public trapeza (a small building near the Gate Church of St. Symeon the Stylite which sells bread and drinks to the visitors of the monastery) and bought a cup of tea, but nearly as soon as I prepared my tea, the bells began to ring. These of course, were the current set of bells in the Gate Church, which began a joyous peal to hearken the beginning of the procession.

I came out of the trapeza to see the monastic clergy in beautiful gold vestments singing in procession though the gate church. The gathered congregation followed suit and began travelling down Ulitsa Danilovsky Val' towards a large intersection. I noticed that the congregation was now about 200 people, all walking with icons and singing various church hymns, merely proud to have the chance to meet the bells. After several minutes of walking and waiting at the intersection, a flatbed pulled up carrying the Harvard/Danilov bells. I could not see them all at that time due to the crowd and the largest bell, which hid the smaller bells from view. The flatbed drove in front of the clergy and led the procession back to the monastery. I somehow got grouped in between the American Harvard delegation and three or four old Russian women telling me to sing with them, and asking me questions about the monastery as if I lived there. Finally we arrived back at the monastery and the bells were placed near a series of platforms which would eventually hold them for the following days' ceremonies. Before I departed for home, one of the lead bell ringers of the monastery walked by myself and the Harvard group. A Harvard delegate commented, "Father! They're finally home!" The monk just beamed and said "Yes, they are!" and hurried off to the bell tower.

Two days later, I left for the monastery again - this time in the morning...at the time, the sun was barely up (sometime before 7am). I entered the monastery church (Cathedral of the Holy Fathers) in time for the service of Hours. I couldn't have gotten inside at a better time; with the start of the service, the rain increased along with the wind, on a day presently in the low 40s. Divine Liturgy began and the people poured in. The service itself was beautiful: the clergy consisted of 1 Metropolitan (His Beatitude Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk), 1 Archbishop, 4 Mitred Archpriests (including I believe, two Archimandrites), at least 10 Priests, 3-4 deacons, 4-5 subdeacons, and several servers. The choir consisted of two male choruses which sang from both sides of the Cathedral. The only negative side was the number of people. The actual congregation consisted of at least 300-400 people packed into a very small area (while the Cathedral is not small, a great deal of its space is taken up by the area where the Hierarchy stands, the two choir lofts, and several pillars holding icons). When the time came to receive Holy Communion, I made special effort to slip to the front of the line and get out of the Cathedral as soon as was possible; several guards (the size of the average NFL linebacker) held back (with difficulty) parts of the massive congregation, all collectively pushing to get to the front of the communion line. I walked around outside and began searching for a spot near the stage where the upcoming ceremony would take place.

As it was raining quite hard, I stood near a group with umbrellas (I had my own, but if I had opened it, I would have never found a spot to view anything). Within moments, a woman handed me a hot pirozhok, a cup of tea, and about 100 rubles, uttered "God bless you" in Russian, and disappeared into a crowd before I was even able to thank her. Within the next few minutes, a Russian man in his 60s pulled me to the front of the gate viewing the stage, held his umbrella over me and told me "Stay here, you'll see things better!" I was absolutely astounded, but very little prepared me for the next half hour. The clergy processed towards the stage from the Cathedral and took their places under umbrellas held by various subdeacons and readers. Seconds later, I saw two familiar men walk by: the subdeacons to the Patriarch of Moscow (I recognized them from pictures I had previously seen). The bells in the main tower began ringing, and two cars pulled up through the Gate Church.

At that moment, His Holiness, Alexy, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia stepped out of the car and began walking towards the stage. He stopped directly in front of our small group, gave a blessing to our shouts of "Mnogaya Leta! (God Grant You Many years!) and waited. I was at a point where I had no idea what to say or do, as I had just received a blessing from the leading Hierarch in the Russian Orthodox Church throughout the world. But who was he waiting for? Within the next few minutes, another limousine pulled through the Gate Church, only this one came equipped with the Russian Secret Service. Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation stepped out of the car and walked to the Patriarch. The two talked briefly and processed to the stage.

The actual ceremony was brief. The man next to me did his best to make sure I was warm, giving me his gloves and telling others to keep their umbrellas over me. The Patriarch gave his commentary on the return of the bells as did several others. The President briefly rang one of the bells per the request of the Patriarch, which signalled the final moment. Three bell ringers began a series of peals on the Danilov Bells, ringing for the first time in their proper home in nearly 80 years. The sound was phenomenal: the highest bells sounded glorious and the deepest bells shook your entire body. The only thought in my head at that point was "I hope that everyone in the world can hear this and understand its importance."

I left, shaking from the cold, still awestruck at the past several hours. The following day marked my third week in Russia. Looking back, I can't believe that I witnessed all that I did in such a short period of time, but I did. This was truly an amazing event, both personally and for the Church in Russia. I hope it has been interesting reading about it for you all as well!