The heroes of the series – representatives of various professions tell us about details of their job that has become their mission. This time we spent a day with Alexander Sentyai, a bell-ringer of Kursk Faith, Hope, Love and Their Mother Sophia Temple.
Chimes Spread across Kursk...
The church, where the hero of our article performs his obedience routines, until quite recently has been the only one in the fast-growing North-East district of Kursk. New streets are laid out, buildings are erected, and the temple's yard is improved. The temple welcomed believers 10 years ago. From 1997 till opening in the new building, it had been temporarily located in premises of the nearest kindergarten. Since that time, the wasteland, surrounded by tower blocks, has been transformed into a wonderful nook with Alpine rock gardens and decorations. Sweet cherry and barberry blossom here in spring, and roses do in summer. A portrait sculpture of Russian Tsar Nicholas II was mounted near a memorial cross and a chapel for good reason. This piece of land, formerly called Kozatskoye Pole ("Cossak's Field"), was a site of big military manoeuvres attended by the Emperor.
Of course, it is hard to imagine a temple complex without a belfry. It is silent at the dawn. 24-year old bell-ringer Alexander Sentyai walks along almost empty streets of the awaking city, thinking about tempo, rhythm and a spiritual message of today's bell song. He preconceives what should come out of it. Snow falls and melts down on his shoulders, though it is the 9th of April today.
Preparations for divine service in the church have been in full swing since 6 o'clock. Soon, believers fill the premises where air is saturated with smell of wax and burning incenses. A number of people who want to participate in a Communion service on Holy Thursday is larger than usual. This day, the Communion has a special sense and meaning. The believers commemorate the last days of Jesus Christ. Holy Week is the week just before Easter.
Three cadenced hits of a bell tongue on a bronze wall are meant to honour the Holy Trinity. A dull soothing sound of the main bass 900-kg bell, also known as Blagovest in the orthodox Christian culture, announces the beginning of the second liturgy. In a moment of silence, the skilful hands of the young maestro brightly play all 13 bells, including the smallest one, a four-kilogram treble bell called Zazvonniy. The ringing of church bells is a distinctive variety of the Russian musical art. A 10-minute long fairy peal of bells finishes with a triple chord the sound of which resounds for hundreds of meters. A wave of mellow chimes, gradually fading away, melts in busy traffic noises...
Alexander is from a family of military people. His father Alexander, a car mechanic, was among a group of military experts sent by the USSR to assist the Egypt Army in their conflict with the Israel Armed Forces in the late 1960s. Warrant officer Sentyai had also participated in the war in Afghanistan, and then he had done a military service in Czechoslovakia for five years before the Soviet Armed Forces were withdrawn from there. He met his wife in Kursk chemical defence brigade. Lyudmila, a teacher of German by background, served there for 15 years as a headquarters record clerk. They used to take their little son to the military unit but the army life was not appealing to him.
"The parents reacted calmly to my decision to leave the upper school and join an orthodox gymnasium. When I graduated from it, I entered a seminary," says Alexander. "Though my family were not frequent church goers, the attitude towards the faith was respectful. One day, when I was about 14, I felt an urge to take the New Testament from a bookshelf. That moment must have been crucial. Also, some of my ancestors were church officers. My father's grandfather was a hegumen in Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. My mother's grandmother Tatyana was raised in a monastery, and grand-grandmother Ekaterina all her life until extreme age participated in sacred processions from Kursk to the Root Hermitage.
A Divine Melody
The today's liturgy finishes earlier than usual. Before ringing an announcement of dismissal, Alexander enters the Altar to receive a blessing. "The church statute requires doing this each time," he explained later, stepping into a special podium of the belfry where the ropes from all the bells converge. "In the very beginning I say "O Heavenly King" and also try to pray when I ring..."
Passers-by stop now and then. A woman raises her child for him to touch the big bell with tiny hands. People believe in healing properties of ringing bells not for nothing – bell's vibrations kill a huge number of pathogenic germs. In Ancient Russia, bells had been going almost continuously during plagues. Alexander has also experienced their invisible impact. He has been catching cold less frequently for the last eight years.
Sun rays poke through the clouds that are moved across the gloomy sky by gusts of wind. We enter the prothesis to get warm. They cook here round wheat breads that mysteriously convert into God's Flesh during the main Christian ceremony the Eucharist. They need to bake 3500 prosphora today and tomorrow.
The wind is howling into the window. "Weather influences the sound of bells," says Alexander, giving ear to the sound of snow pellets hitting the window glass. "If the weather is dry and hot or when metal is covered with ice in autumns or spring then the sound is a bit dull. Otherwise, when it is rainy or foggy, you just touch a tongue and a melody is soaring high, the acoustics is amazing because water is a good sound conductor. The ringing sound in winter is crisp too, but one has to ring a bell easy because the bell may break in frost”.
There is a second bell-ringer who is responsible for the technical condition of the bells. Incidentally, Georgy Beliayev happens to be near. Among other things, he is also a senior prosphorum man. "Sometimes a rope gets loose, I need to stretch them regularly," he remarks touching his growing beard. "We check beams, clamps, and we also see to it that no rust occurs. It is really a bad thing if a bell's tongue is too low, because if it hits below the ringing belt area then cracks will appear."
There is a couple of hours before the beginning of the evening divine service. Alexander would have missionary duties in a usual day, but now he has a "window", a free period. He walks with a cart in a supermarket. The church officer in civil clothes scrutinizes shelves with cottage cheese: "I will prepare a curd cake for Easter. It's been the custom from childhood to dye Easter eggs and bake cakes..."
A Way to Church Bells
"Mother used to take me St. John the Evangelist Church, it was there that I heard the noise of the bells for the first time," he recollects. "And ten years after I ascended the belfry with an intention to learn the bell-ringer's craft." They helped him to learn the "literacy" of ringing in Znamensky Cathedral. Ivan Kolesnik gave him the basics, taught him how to improvise without breaching the universal church tradition. Alexander studied special techniques of Moscow, Yaroslavl, Arkhangelsk and Saint Petersburg ringing schools on his own during pilgrimages. He received much advice from experienced bell-ringers, borrowing something for his compositions. Now he has his own pupils.
One of the places where Alexander honed his skill was the Temple of Holy Royal Martyrs. It is a new parish built in Kursk five years ago. Since that time, the belfry has been managed by the youngest bell-ringer of our city Sophia Maslova. She is 13 now. The girl's parents were the main proponents for the construction of the 5-dome snow-white giant temple.
The 7th grade pupil from Lyceum No.6 has had her own way to the bells. "I loved listening to the noise of the bells, but I never gave it a second thought that I could ring myself," she says. "When bell-ringer Vladimir Petrovsky came to Kursk in 2010 for a bell blessing ceremony, he was looking for an apprentice. I volunteered because he was one of the best in his craft, and well-known far beyond Russia. Then I finished a four-year Sunday school of our temple. As a result, I ring on weekends and big holidays. In December, I participated in a bell-ringing festival in Perm Krai.
...Having put on his cassock again, Alexander rings the Pair, two Lent bells. The evening divine service has begun in the parish of the North-West district. This service is one of the longest throughout the year. The Twelve Gospels are pronounced during the service. Each of the extracts devoted to Christ's Passions is accompanied by rings of the bell matching a number of readings. Shouts of the priest and deacon, solemn whispers in the crowd... The frames of icons mysteriously shine golden reflecting the light of hundreds of candles. The congregation will take these vibrant flames home after the service.
The divine voice of the bells fills the thick twilight. A dense procession of multi-coloured glows, spreading more and more along the dark church yard, dissolves in the glitter of neon commercials and in the little suns of street lights. Each believer carries a vigil lamp in hands and God's grace from the bells inside their souls...
In accordance with an old tradition, the belfries of all orthodox temples are open for visitation for the Easter week. Anyone may ring the bells.
