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I’m reading Brideshead Revisited, a book from my own bookshelf, bought years ago after studying and enjoying Evelyn Waugh in a literature class. I’m charmed by the author’s language and humour. I get to a passage in which Charles is walking out on a Sunday morning, heading from his room at Oxford to a cafe:
I walked down the empty Broad to breakfast, as I often did on Sundays, at a tea-shop opposite Balliol. The air was full of bells from the surrounding spires and the sun, casting long shadows across the open spaces, dispelled the fears of the night.
Waugh’s passage reminds me of a radio documentary local CBC talk guy Kevin Sylvester did recently about church bells, and how they are starting to become a thing of the past here in North America. Church bells have never been as fixed in our culture as they have been in Europe, partially because such things as cathedrals – and as such their place within a community – are relatively rare. And in today’s world, the smaller churches, with their reduced populations and increased money challenges, don’t end up repairing those bells that become damaged or deemed unsafe to use.
One part of Sylvester’s story that really astounded me was that here in Toronto, in a place where there are several large and historic churches with beautiful bells, the churches are not ringing them on Sunday mornings because of threats from the neighbourhood people that they would sue the church for disturbing the peace.
Several years ago I visited Finland and a good part of the journey entailed touring and learning about Orthodox churches. We were there over Easter time, and learned that one of the traditions in the Finnish Orthodox church is that the local population is welcomed into the church’s spire to ring the bells in celebration during Easter week. As one can imagine, children love this tradition. At Valamo Monastery and retreat where we stayed over the Easter weekend, the bells pealed out all through the day Sunday.
One of the churches I liked best is in a town called Ilomantsi. This one, made of clapboard is much less ornate and busy than most of the others we toured. There we met up with Annelli, wife of the resident priest, who eventually took us back to her home for dinner.
