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Russian monks want Harvard's bells

"They wake me up every weekend, so the monks can have them."

Rob Wheeler, student at Harvard

Father Alexei looks out of the window at the bell tower of the Moscow headquarters of the Rus-sian Patriarch and wonders whether his prayers will be answered.

The bells in the monastery tower peal loudly and tunefully enough, but their chimes are a cause more for rancor than religious reflection because they are only replacements for originals whisked away by a US benefactor 70 years ago.

Seven decades ago the American diplomat and plumbing magnate Charles Crane bought the Danilov monastery's 18 bronze bells and donated them to Harvard University to stop Soviet ruler Josef Stalin from carrying out a threat to melt them down.

"The bells are valuable -- they are an inalienable part of the soul and culture of the Russian nation," Alexei said, explaining that some dated back to the 17th century. "The bells call people to worship ... They are like the voice of God on earth -- they call people to turn to God."

Stalin closed the central Moscow monastery in 1930 and it was turned into a prison under communist rule, which sought to actively discourage religious practice by closing monasteries and destroying religious artefacts such as bells and icons.

When the 700-year-old monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1983, the monks gathered bells from around Russia to hang in the empty pink-and-white bell tower. But Father Alexei says it is not the same as having the originals.

He said Harvard, the elite university on the east coast of the US near Boston, was not getting the most from the bells because people there don't know how to ring them properly.

"They do not produce the traditional Russian sound of bells because they are hung up differently," the bearded monk said. "And there isn't anyone there who could ring them like they should be rung. In this monastery there are brothers who are able to ring the bells how they ought to be."

Every Sunday Harvard's bell ringers sound the bells for 15 minutes, and students agree they sound rather unconventional.

"I think it sounds like a little kid just banging on pots and pans," said student Skyler Mann.

The monks do not dispute the bells legally belong to Harvard, but they are asking for them to be returned to Moscow out of good will. The university is not against the idea, but says Russia will have to foot the bill itself.

Both sides agree the logistics of transporting the bells are the deciding factor in resolving their fate. With the heaviest of them weighing nearly 13 tonnes and measuring 3m wide, removing them from a tower specially built to house them will be a major challenge.

The bell tower on top of the university's Lowell House dormitory building houses 17 of the bells. Another hangs in the Harvard Business School.

At a meeting between the monks and Harvard in December, the two sides agreed Russia must provide a new set of bells for the university in exchange for the Danilov set. It must also bear the full cost of the swap.

"Upon completion of this analysis and a favorable assessment of the possibility of going forward with the project, the two parties will resume discussion. Further costs such as construction, transportation and bell-replacement would be borne by the Russian side," Harvard said in a statement.

Alexei says it is not clear how much it will cost, but he knows the monastery does not have enough money.

"The monastery is of course not in a position to pay for it itself," he said, adding that it was appealing for donations.

"It is difficult to talk about the cost at the moment... but if we talk about just the moulding [of the new bells] it could be around US$700,000 or more," he said.

Alexei admits the bells are important both to Harvard and to the Orthodox Church. On the university's campus, students are divided about the future of the bells.

"I think we have a claim ... I guess the Russians do too, historically," said Andrew Bitto. "But as far as actual ownership goes they are Harvard's."

Others would be glad to see the back of them.

"They wake me up every weekend, so the monks can have them," said Rob Wheeler.
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