Historic Ansonia church bell moved to Orange
ANSONIA — For nearly a century, it’s tones tolled milestones first on the west side and later the east side of the city.
The bell rang rapidly and sounded happily following baptisms and weddings and Christmas and Easter services. It’s tones became slower and more solemn following funerals and Good Friday services.
On Sundays and Holy Days its rings called Ukrainians and later Greeks to services. An hour later those clangs sent them home.
But for now the bell is silent.
On Monday it began a new journey strapped to a flatbed trailer as it made its way from the now closed Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church on Hubbell Avenue to St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church on Racebrook Road, Orange.
“It will be put in storage until we build the Holy Trinity chapel there,” said Jerry Vartelas, who first heard the bell toll when he was baptized at Holy Trinity in 1924. “But bells need to be seen and heard. It’s going to ring again.”
The bell, which weights 420 pounds and has a 27 inch diameter, came to life in 1912 in Troy, N.Y., where it was cast in bronze by the Meneely Bell Co. and delivered here. It was installed first in St. Peter and St. Paul Church. There it tolled for seven years until that parish built its new church with new bells on Clifton Avenue.
In 1919, they sold the old bell to the newly-constructed Holy Trinity Church on Hubbell Avenue for a mere $150.
And there it stayed until Monday morning.
John Fernandes of Bridgeport-based A&A Crane and Rigging said it took him several hours Sunday to get the bell down.
“We were able to take it down from the inside without cutting into the building,” Fernandes said. “It wasn’t too difficult.”
Vartelas watched with some sadness Monday seeing the last vestiges of his church being removed.
The baptism bowl in which he was baptized stands empty in an aisle. Next to it is another empty bowl which once held the Holy water used to anoint parishioners. He looks fondly at 30 oil paintings of icons to whom he prayed.
“We’re going to be taking those out,” he said.
“All the sacred things are going to St. Barbara,” said Andrew Stefanou, a parish council member at that church, who is a native of Cypress. “That’s what we do in the old country when we build a new church. I don’t know about the pews. They may stay.”
Holy Trinity is up for sale. It’s last service took place July 12.
That day, some 55 parishioners heard the Rev. Joel McEachen of Fairfield, their pastor for the past 35 years, bless their spiritual and physical well-being in a service the Greek Orthodox call Artoklasia. They heard him encourage them to take their faith with them to a new Orthodox church.
The parish recently donated $50,000 to the Valley Community Fund, Inc. as a show of thanks for the way the Valley accepted Greek immigrants.
Now their Holy Trinity Church and an adjacent two-story Colonial, with its attached garage, is up for sale in separate transactions.
“As a youngster, it was a big deal to be picked to ring the bell,” said Vartelas, of Stratford.
Now at 85, he looks forward to another chance to ring the bell someday soon in Orange.۩
