Bell Ringing

Romanos · Oct 11, 2017

I know there are still some churches that ring bells. Does yours?

Andrew · Oct 11, 2017

In Christianity, some Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran churches ring their church bells from belltowers three times a day, at 6:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., summoning the Christian faithful to recite the Lord's Prayer, or the Angelus, a prayer recited in honour of the Incarnation of God. -wikipedia

I wonder if this still goes on as well, if its used for this purpose.

faramir.pete · Oct 11, 2017

There are churches in our city that still have bells that are rung, but not to the same regularity mentioned above. My understanding is that churches with bell towers and a full peel of bells have structural issues that bell ringing will not help, so they are only rung on special occassions.

Locally to my home, the nearest anglican church has a single small bell which is rung before every service on Sunday to call the faithful to the service, this does harp back to the sort of regime that DH refers to but it is a single bell and is not a full peel of bells.

Pete from Peterborough UK

Lamb · Oct 11, 2017

I'm not sure about my current church but my previous one had an automated bell system.

NewCreation435 · Oct 11, 2017

Romanos said:
I know there are still some churches that ring bells. Does yours?

I don't know of any churches in this area that do this here in North Carolina

Pedrito · Oct 11, 2017

At first, Pedrito couldn’t remember whether or not the Anglican church he attended as a youth rang bells or not.

But after he thought about it for a while, it started to ring a bell.

Albion · Oct 11, 2017

jsimms435 said:
I don't know of any churches in this area that do this here in North Carolina

Mine does, but I consider that an oddity. You know, now that the question is brought up here, there used to be some churches in my town that did ring bells (or electronic reproductions of that sound) which no longer do. I wonder what has accounted for that change. It could be that so many people work unusual shifts these days that there have been complaints about disturbing their sleep.

psalms 91 · Oct 11, 2017

I miss them

MoreCoffee · Oct 11, 2017

My parish church has no bell tower and no big bell. One in a neighbouring parish does have a tower but I do not think that they have a bell in it. The neighbours might complain if they ran it at 07:30 on Sunday mornings ...

Albion · Oct 11, 2017

I was thinking more about this since writing my previous post and I thought of a few other considerations that are easily overlooked. For one, the bell-ringing churches used to be downtown in business districts that are almost totally commercial and which have a lot of noise in any case. But today, the more prominent churches are in quasi-suburban areas close to residences. That could verify the idea of people complaining about being awakened by bells. Also, newer church architecture doesn't usually make any provision for bell towers, let alone bells, both of which would be a serious additional expense for something that's of little practical benefit.

MoreCoffee · Oct 11, 2017

Bell towers look nice and the sound of church bells in the morning and the evening is charming.

Albion · Oct 11, 2017

Yes, they can be. But so are traditional stained glass windows and elaborate altars. How many of them are features of newer church buildings? Its mainly because of the cost, I think.

MoreCoffee · Oct 11, 2017

Albion said:
Yes, they can be. But so are traditional stained glass windows and elaborate altars. How many of them are features of newer church buildings? Its mainly because of the cost, I think.

My parish church building will soon acquire two large stained glass windows. And our Altar is - from a protestant perspective - elaborate. Our building is about 10 years old.

Albion · Oct 11, 2017

MoreCoffee said:
My parish church building will soon acquire two large stained glass windows. And our Altar is - from a protestant perspective - elaborate. Our building is about 10 years old.

You're fortunate, but I would call that situation atypical.

MoreCoffee · Oct 11, 2017

Albion said:
You're fortunate, but I would call that situation atypical.

It is very common in my diocese.

Lamb · Oct 11, 2017

I live in a rural area and almost all the local churches (except where the Amish/Mennonites meet) have bells that ring certain times during the day as well as before the church services.

Bell Ringing

Romanos

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