Bells are one of the oldest and most popular instruments in the world. One of the oldest bells are the Chinese zhong bells, dating from 2000 to 3600 BC.
Most of the history of bells in Europe is closely linked to the history of Christianity. The first use of bells in Christian Europe is ecclesiastical tradition attributed to St. Paul, bishop Nolan (353-431), according to which the prototype of the first bells were wild flowers - bells, and the Latin name of the campana bells linked to the Italian region of Campania, where Nola is. Historical monuments of the West mention the bells only in the VII century. at temples in Rome and Orleans. Widespread in the West bells were received in the VIII century. Thanks to Charles I and the Great. Copper and tin alloy bells were made, later iron was added to these metals, and in rare cases silver. In the Orthodox East, bells appeared for the first time in the 9th century under the Emperor Basil I Macedonian, but were widely used in temples only after the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 during the 4th Crusade.
About a certain level of distribution of bells on the Ukrainian lands can be said about the second half of the XI century, their origin is, according to historians, Western Europe. The first chronicle mention of the bells in Rus dates back to 1,000 sixty-six years. In Kiev, bells were in the Tithe and Irynin churches. Also mentioned are the bells in the temples of Novgorod (XI century), Polotsk, Novgorod-Siversky and Volodymyr-Volynsky (end of the XII century). The chronicles also mention masters of the church affairs of Suzdal and Kiev.
The oldest bell in Rus, preserved to this day, was found during the excavations in 1906 in Kiev on Podol.
The maximum weight of the bells is gradually increased from hundreds to thousands of pounds.
After the October Revolution in the USSR, bells received unprecedented in the history of persecution on ideological and economic grounds. The church bell was banned, and, since 1930, with the onset of the activities of the Union of Warlike Atheists, bells were massively destroyed and melting for the needs of metallurgy.
The bell is a final sign of the temple.
The church bells together to:
- summon the believers to the worship;
- express the triumph of the Church and its divine services;
- notify the people not attending the temple about the time of the implementation of especially important parts of the Divine Services.
The church bell serves not only for the purposes of divine service, but is also an expression of joy, sum and triumph of the people. Hence, different types of bells appeared.
In the church distinguish 4 canonical types of bell: blessing, bustle, bells and ringing.
The sounds of the bells have magical properties. Their bell penetrates deeply into the soul. Cause joy or anxiety. In 2013-2014, during the Revolution of Dignity, when the dispersal of the protesters was massively carried out, in many churches beat the bells. Even now, when I write about it, the frost goes through the body.
On the night of December 11, 2013, during the bloody dispersal of the members of the Revolutionary , the Mikhailovsky Golden-domed monastery was the first to strike at the bell after the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1240. Priest Ivan Sidor thus decided to summon people to the main square of Ukraine. Continuous ringing lasted more than three hours. In the morning bells were also beaten in Lviv and Odesa. It affected the Berkut soldiers who did not dare to storm the church buildings where the protesters hid. As a result, more people were leaving the country's squares.