Several prestigious places of worship will ring their bells Thursday at noon for seven minutes, one minute per day of war in Ukraine.
Launched in Germany, the operation intends to mobilize the whole of Europe. The European Association of Cathedral Architects asks, in a press release issued Wednesday in France, that these prestigious places of worship each ring their bells, Thursday at noon for seven minutes, one minute per day of war in Ukraine. “When the nations are burning, the bells are ringing the tocsin”, proclaims the press release.
“With this ringing, we show our solidarity with the peoples who must endure this war and fear for their lives, organize their resistance against a superior power in force, face the war”, continues the text. In France, the operation is relayed by the Company of Chief Architects of Historical Monuments (ACMH). “When there is war, cathedrals are symbols of peace”, says Martin Bacot, its general secretary.
In Germany, the capital Berlin, Frankfurt, Constance or Lübeck are among the first cities to have announced their participation. In France, mobilization is taking place. Some buildings have already made commitments, according to information collected by Martin Bacot, in particular those of Dijon (Côte-d’Or) and Autun. In Lyon, the very beautiful Saint-Jean cathedral will ring its bells for Ukraine, confirms the archdiocese. After a few moments of uncertainty, Notre-Dame de Paris will also participate in this European knell.
To do this, the agreement of the clergy was needed. Even if most French cathedrals belong to the State, the Catholic Church is, according to the established term, the assignee, a kind of tenant. As such, the clergy manage the bell rings. No common position has been taken within the episcopate regarding the operation, confirmed to Release Hugues de Woillemont, secretary general and spokesman of the Conference of Bishops of France. It is up to each diocese to make the decision.
After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Notre-Dame de Paris had sounded the death knell in memory of the members of the team of the satirical and anticlerical weekly. On April 15, 2020, one year after the day after the fire that ravaged the building, the bells, operated by hand by bell ringers, had resounded in the sky of Paris.