When the bells toll

Elide Siviero

At Easter we will hear the sound of the bells rebounding from one church to another announcing life over death. Every Sunday the ringing of bells call us to celebrate our Lord’s day. Sometime ago I got to know Fr. Davide Zanoni, a country priest! Thanks to him I have discovered a world that I had underestimated. He gave me a lot of information. For example, I now know that the largest bell in Austria is kept in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, which was cast for the first time in 1711 as a thank you for having escaped the Turkish invasion, in the battle that took place in 1683. For the occasion, a bell weighing 18 tons was made with the cannons captured from the Turkish army. It required many men to be rung and for this reason it was rarely used. Unfortunately, due to a fire in 1945, this bell fell and shattered; but in 1951 it was reassembled using the material from the broken one and adding the bronze from the cannons, taken from the historical museum, which also belonged to the Turkish army. This new bell was made thanks to the contribution of all the federal states of Austria, weighs 20 tons and is rung on the solemnities of the liturgical year, but also on Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of a new Lenten journey with its tolling... (continue)

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