Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain 25

25

Seraphim Rings the Bells:

Greek Orthodox believers love to have bells ringing as a part of their worship and ringing bells is what Seraphim liked to do best. In this he was like “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” since as one of “God’s fools”, the bell ringer job was really the only one that he could do.

A rickety wooden bell tower stood on some rocks over the cemetery garden just outside the monastery compound with about fifteen bells of all sizes and shapes rigged up on it so that one very lively person, like Seraphim, could ring them all by pulling different cords or stomping on pedals. It seems that the only thing expected from Seraphim was to make a lot of noise and he was ready and willing to provide all the racket anyone could desire.

His music was nothing like the melodic bell ringing done by trained teams of ringers in Britain—Oh no, indeed! Seraphim’s exuberant ringing was unadulterated dissonance!

I liked to watch Seraphim leaping around his platform, stomping pedals and jerking cords to his heart’s delight. It was cacophony. It was madness. It was Seraphim Bliss!

Sometimes Seraphim would concentrate on ringing one particular bell he seemed to favor, but before the sound got too boring, he would fly off into the other jangling possibilities and make the air sparkle with sound. You wouldn’t want to buy a recording of this “music”–– I’m rather certain it would be unpleasant outside of its particular Holy Mountain environment—but at Saint Anne’s it was Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach and Beethoven. Even better––it was pure Seraphim!

Tomasito, 2009


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