Lowell House attempted to share their coveted bells in spirit—if not in kind—with their original owner in a noontime ceremony yesterday.

The Russian relics—which are originally from the St. Danilov Monastery in Moscow, reverberated in recognition of the 700th anniversary of the saint’s death.

Four eager bell ringers, or Klappermeisters, played different harmonies to mark the event.

Even Lowell House Masters Diana L. Eck and Dorothy A. Austin joined in the bell-ringing.

Cast for the monastery in the 17th and 18th centuries, the bells were bought by industrialist Charles Crane in the 1920s after the Russian government threatened to melt them down, and were given to University President A. Lawrence Lowell as a gift in 1930.

The monastery said last year that it hoped for the return of the bells before yesterday’s anniversary, but Eck and Austin said that financial and tactical concerns prevented the unlikely exchange.

However, Eck and Austin said they are working to cultivate an understanding between Harvard and the monastery.

“Our ringing of the bells should be overlapping with the end of the day and the end of a 6 p.m. ceremony in Moscow,” Eck said.

She added that she has been in correspondence with the webmaster of the monastery and sent an e-mail to mark the event.

After a brief introduction addressing the significance of the bells and St. Danilov’s death, Eck distributed ear plugs to the small crowd that had assembled to hear the bells.

The group then climbed the narrow staircase leading to the bell tower, where the bells—ranging in size and weight from the 13 ton “Mother Earth” to 20 pounders the size of baseball hats—are strung to the inner supports of the tower.

The ceremony began with the ringing of Mother Earth. Once the vibration had subsided, the Klappermeisters took turns playing different tunes on the bells.

Mother Earth is rung by someone standing inside of it and swinging its pendulum, while the smaller bells are controlled by a series of wires connected to each bell.

“What we do is usually improvised,” former bell ringer Alex J. Healy ’02 said. “With practice you get used to the scales and setup.”

Current Klappermeister Benjamin I. Rapoport ’03 said the webmaster of the St. Danilov monastery has visited and responded to the portion of the Lowell House website devoted to the bells.