Putna Monastery has preserved four bells since its beginnings: Buga, the Blagovistnik (“the Annunciator”), and the Usher, which are now displayed near the Bell Tower; and the Silouan, still used today.
The oldest is Buga, donated by Saint Stephen to the monastery in 1484. Putna’s national symbolism has been especially connected to this bell. According to tradition, the bell’s toll could be heard all over Moldavia, much like his founder’s commands. During one of his trips to Putna, Mihai Eminescu learned and noted in an article that Buga began tolling by itself on October 1, 1777, when the Turks assassinated Gregory III Ghica, the Moldavian prince who protested when the Ottomans gave Bukovina to the Austrian Empire.
The Buga bell
The Buga bell of the Putna Monastery was made by its founder, blessed Stephen the Great, in the year of our Lord 1484; and in the year 1760 it broke down, and the monastery, with the help of Metropolitan Jacob of Putna, cast it anew; and in 1793 it broke down, and again in 1818, and through the labor of Abbot Philaret Bendevski and the help of Boyars Elijah Ilski, Demetrakius Costan, and Basil Vasilco was made whole again. Hear, O Lord, their prayer.
The Buga bell was donated by Saint Stephen to the Putna Monastery in 1484. Its dedicatory inscription recalls the path of this famous bell..
Over time, Buga was repaired and recast several times, as if it were experiencing the hardship and changes undergone by the whole nation.
The Blagovistnik, molded in 1490, also dates back to Stephen the Great’s time. When its sound became jangly, it was no longer recast. .
The Usher was given to the monastery by Prince Petru Rareș.
Only one of the old bells still calls the faithful to prayer today in its original form, having never been altered by repairs. It is the Silouan, a bell named after its donor: “In the days of the pious prince Io Petru Voivode, the archimandrite and hieromonk Silouan cast this bell for his own soul and that of his parents, in the year 7038 <1530>, on the 16th of July.”
The 550th anniversary of the monastery was honored by commissioning a new set of bells to join the existing ones. 11 bells were made at a factory in Tutayev, Voronezh, Russia, between 2015 and 2016, using the old technology of clay-based bell casting. Each bell received the name of a patron saint of the monastery: Saint Stephen the Great (5,200 kg), Holy Hierarch Jacob of Putna (2,980 kg), Holy Hierarch Theoctistus (1,770 kg), Saint Daniel the Hermit, Holy Hierarch Gennadius, Holy Hierarch Elijah Iorest, Saint Silas, Saint Paisius, Saint Nathan, Saint Arsenius, and Eusthatius the Protopsaltes.
The bells bear inscriptions such as: “It praises the true God, calls the people, gathers the servants, mourns the dead, drives away pestilence, adorn the feasts,” or “It calls the living, mourns the dead, drives away lightning.” The largest bell bears a dedicatory inscription: “With the will of the Father, the help of the Son, and the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit, these bells were cast 550 years after the laying of the foundation stone of the Putna Monastery, where the patronal feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary is celebrated, with the blessing of His Eminence Poemen Zainea, Archbishop of Suceava and Rădăuți, through the zeal of the father abbot, Archimandrite Melkizedek Velnic, and of the entire brotherhood.”
His Eminence Poemen, Archbishop of Suceava and Rădăuți, blessed the new bells on July 10, 2016, for the 550th anniversary of the foundation of the monastery.
They were blessed by His Eminence Poemen, Archbishop of Suceava and Rădăuți, on July 10, 2016, after the Holy Liturgy.
Each bell bears an icon of the saint after whom it is named, alongside an icon of the Savior, of the Dormition of the Mother of God, or a reproduction of Saint Stephen the Great’s coat of arms from a bell in Bistrița.
