Published: 18 March, 2009, 19:01
Edited: 18 March, 2009, 19:01
With no-one to ring the bells, a Russian Orthodox parish in Western Siberia has turned to new technology. The priest is now ringing the changes with a computer.
Modern technology has finally found its way into one of the age-old aspects of that most conservative of institutions – the Church.
A distant village in the Kemerovsky region in western Siberia has found it hard to attract a bell ringer. So Father Vladimir Bratonec decided to bless his parishioners with a piece of computer magic.
“We are all sceptical about innovation. But if it aims to benefit the Church, it helps,” he said.
A machine is wired up to a computer and, using magnets, it is able to duplicate thousands of melodies. It can be programmed a year in advance to fit all the church's feasts and religious occasions and, like all the best gadgets, it's remote-controlled.
Its new owners say only a professional bellringer would be able to distinguish between the computer and a real person.
Now Father Vladimir spends as much time studying his computer manual as he does reading scriptures.