31 December 2020 года

Hegumenia Sergiya took part in clock enabling ceremony installed on the cathedral bell tower in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin

His Eminence Metropolitan Georgiy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas and Gleb Nikitin, the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, took part in the official ceremony. Hegumenia Sergiya (Konkova), the abbess of the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery, was among the esteemed guests.

 

Two minutes before noon, the clock was started by His Eminence Georgiy and Gleb Sergeevich Nikitin. Sharp at noon, the clock struck twelve times.

 

In his salutary address, His Eminence Georgiy noted the significance of this day. On the eve of the new year of 2021, the year of the 800th anniversary of the founding of Nizhny Novgorod, the city received two gifts.

 

“Earlier this morning, we consecrated the church to the Holy Hierarch Nicholas in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin,” reminded the archpastor. “We’ve restored the cathedral bell tower in Kremlin and now it has a clock after the fashion of the 19th century. At noon today, the clock struck time for the first time right in the heart of our city. It is a symbolic beginning to our festivities of the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod. May we keep doing the good deeds in the future to the glory of God, our God-protected Motherland, the people of God, and the city of Nizhny Novgorod! Any good work requires great effort but only when we are united and work together in harmony such good deeds would come to fruition. We rejoice knowing that the city of Nizhny Novgorod has this spirit of cooperation, conciliarity, and consensus. I thank the Governor, the Mayor, our builders, benefactors, sponsors, and donors for allowing us to bid the blessed anniversary welcome with these achievements. May God help us! Wishes of merry Nativity of Christ and new year!”

 

The clock furnished with weights and chimes will strike every quarter of an hour and every hour. The clockmakers were able to recreate the old-fashioned mechanism just as it would have been made in the past.

 

Like any other tower clock, the inner mechanism of the kremlin clock has three parts. One of them is responsible for motion, another for chiming a quarter of an hour, and the third one determines the number of hours necessary to be chimed. In the past, the clock chiming helped people orient in time better. Overall, the mechanism weighs about half a ton if not taking into account the weight of hour faces.

 

The hour faces have a unique feature: one of them has Slavic numerals, another Arabic with two others having the Roman numerals.

 

On the exterior, the faces look exactly like those installed at the bell towers of the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery and Nizhny Novgorod Ascension Pechersky monastery: they have gilded chapters mounted on the black background.

 

The mechanism and the hour faces were made at the Nizhny Novgorod machine-building plant using the drawings by Alexander Krasnikov, the clock master from Kaluga, who also made the clock for the bell tower at the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery.

 

Photos credit of nne.ru