Local churches join in Harvard Commencement tradition
A joyous peal of bells will ring throughout Cambridge on Commencement Day. In celebration of the city of Cambridge and of the country’s oldest university — and of our earlier history when bells of varying tones summoned us from sleep to prayer, work, or study — this ancient yet new sound will fill Harvard Square and the surrounding area with music when a number of neighboring churches and institutions ring their bells at the conclusion of Harvard’s 366th Commencement Exercises, for the 29th consecutive year. The bells will begin to ring at 11:45 a.m., shortly after Peter J. Koutoujian, sheriff of Middlesex County, declares the Commencement Exercises adjourned. They will ring for approximately 15 minutes. The deep-toned bell in the Memorial Church tower, for years the only bell to acknowledge the festival rites of Commencement, will be joined by the set of bells cast to replace the original 17-bell Russian zvon of Lowell...