Celebrating tradition

In honor of the city of Cambridge and of America’s oldest university, nearby churches and establishments will toll their bells in acknowledgement of Harvard’s 374th Commencement.

For the 38th consecutive year, the bells will commence ringing at 12:15 p.m. Thursday, just after the sheriff of Middlesex County announces the adjournment of the Commencement Exercises. The bells will sound for about 15 minutes.

Bells of diverse tones carry historical significance, having summoned students from rest to prayer, diligence, or study. The deep-toned bell in the Memorial Church tower, which for years was the sole bell to acknowledge the celebratory rites of Commencement, will be accompanied by a set of bells crafted to serve as replacements for the original 17-bell Russian zvon of Lowell House, which was returned in 2008 to the Danilov Monastery near Moscow. The bell of Harvard Business School will resonate across the river. The historic 13-bell “Harvard Chime” of Christ Church Cambridge, the Harvard Divinity School bell located in Swartz Hall, and bells from the Church of the New Jerusalem, First Church Congregational, First Parish Unitarian Universalist, First Baptist Church, St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, University Lutheran Church, Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church, and St. Anthony’s Church will ring out for the graduates.

Bells were already in use at Harvard in 1643 when “New England’s First Fruits,” published in London that same year, laid out certain College regulations: “Every Scholar shall be present in his tutor’s chambers at the 7th hour in the morning, immediately following the sound of the bell … opening the Scripture and prayer.”

Three of the 15 bells known to have existed in Massachusetts before 1680 were hung within the limits of the current College Yard, including the original College bell and the bell of the First Parish Church.

Of the churches partaking in the joyous ringing on Commencement Day, one, the First Parish, has connections with Harvard that date back to its establishment. The College had access to the church’s bell, Harvard’s first Commencement took place in the church’s meetinghouse, and a principal reason for selecting Cambridge as the location for the College was the closeness of this church and its minister, the Rev. Thomas Shepard, a clergyman of “noted capability and piety,” according to the late Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison.

Another church participating in the ringing is Christ Church Cambridge. The oldest church in the region, it is home to the “Harvard Chime,” which was named for the bells cast for the church in preparation for its 1861 centennial. Two fellow alumni and Richard Henry Dana Jr., author of “Two Years Before the Mast,” arranged for the chime’s establishment. The 13 bells were first rung on Easter Sunday, 1860: each bell of the Harvard Chime carries in Latin a segment of the “Gloria in Excelsis.”

Referring to the Harvard Chime in 1893, Samuel Batchelder remarked, “From the beginning, the bells were viewed as a shared object of interest and enjoyment for the entire city, and their close association with the University made it an expressed intention that they should be rung, not only on church days but also on all celebrations and special events of the College, a tradition that continues to this day.”

The old Russian bells from Lowell House, in place for 76 years, rang on an Eastern scale; the newer bells emit a delightful sound, much like the bells of the Cambridge churches joining in unison. A thoughtful bell enthusiast noted in 1939, “… church bells, whether they ring in a tinkling manner at the end of the first watch in the still of night, announce the matins a few hours later, or invoke the vespers or angelus, possess a unique allure. Chimes touch the heartstrings …”