church bells in bosnia
The Ottomans in the heyday of their rule permitted no church bells to be rung out to call the faithful to prayer, or to celebrate a marriage service or other festival. Bells were removed from churches already in existence at the time of Ottoman occupation and frequently the most convenient buildings were promptly converted for use as mosques and a minaret raised for the benefit of the occupying imperial power. Churches constructed during the years of Turkey-in-Europe were built with towers empty of bells.
All empires of all political persuasions wax and wane and the Ottomans became famous for being the proverbial “sick man of Europe” during the 19th century. Adjacent powers – the Austrian and the Russian – started to eye Ottoman territory hungrily and of course the subject peoples of the empire began to nibble away at its fabric during the long drive towards self-determination and independence.
The Austrians occupied Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1878 and formally annexed it in 1908. However, even before the Austrians marched in, the Christians of Bosnia had begun to wrest concessions and compromises from the enfeebled Ottoman state. Sv Ive Krstitelja (St John the Baptist) at the Franciscan monastery of Kraljeva Sutjeska, between Sarajevo and Zenica, claims the distinction, in 1860, of being the first church in Bosnia to raise a belfry and be able to ring bells to call to prayer its worshippers (in this case, of course, Roman Catholics) while still under Ottoman rule.
[...] churches of the subject Christian peoples could not ring bells to call parishioners to prayer (see this blog), then how did the faithful know when to attend? In the days before pocket watches and public [...]