A bell rings for souls who passed, threats come

The bell’s toll has sounded every six seconds since Oct. 18, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This Sunday, the single resonance will reach a total of 218,000 times to signify U.S. deaths from COVID.

“It was scheduled to coincide to the proximity of All Saints’ Day, ” said Congregational Church of Patchogue pastor Dwight Wolter. “All Souls Day is the actual day it was to end, but we don’t celebrate it as it falls on a Monday.”

Wolter spoke to the Long Island Advance in the sanctuary early this week.

“We’re at about 110,000 right now,” he said. “The bell ringing was timed out at 216,000 deaths when we started.”

But more have died since the tolling started, he said, “so we’re already behind.”

It has created a firestorm of comments, but Wolter said he has gotten positive reactions nationwide from as far away as Utah. The Utah woman had written about a friend in Guatemala who heard about the bells.

“Your work is spreading far and wide, God bless you,” she said.

Locally, many Facebook and other social media posts have been negative and even threatening, he said, specifically one post whose writer threatened “to ring the neck of the bellringer.”

Wolter said he expected a reaction—some have been crude, but not like this one.

“I’m one of thousands who know All Souls Day honors the dead, but how do we incorporate it into a service?” he said. “So if it opens a conversation about why should I wear a mask, get a vaccine, or who do you trust, those are great questions. I didn’t think a response would be ‘Let’s strangle the pastor reminding us of something we don’t want to remember.’”

On Main Street, the bell ringing is soft, mixing in with street noise. In the sanctuary, it’s barely heard.

That’s because, Wolter said, the 850-pound bell’s sound was recorded.

“We looped the bell ringing through an electronic amplification system near the organ. So by recording it and looping it, you can control the sound,” he said. The bell, 140 years old, does ring on the hour and half-hour.

The church has honored important patriotic events with acts and special services, he said. “The church tower has been lit up in red, white and blue for three years through all holidays,” he said. “On the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, we had three singers dressed in 1940s costumes and hosted vets who came in wheelchairs and from all wars who were singing. We had a teenage girl read Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Day of Infamy’ speech.”

Deputy mayor Jack Krieger said he reached out to Wolter after his announcement to village and chamber officials. There were concerns that the sound from the bell ringing would be loud, then also after some social media posts were antagonistic.

“I saw comments and there seemed to be a conflict going on on Facebook,” Krieger said. “I did reach out to Dwight and asked him to reconsider. The first impression was that the bell would ring as loud as it was. Then he explained about the bell volume. [But] there were also a lot of people saying things that were positive.”

Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce executive director David Kennedy commented that Wolter addressed the initiative in a responsible way.

“There are a lot of lives lost and it shouldn’t be forgotten,” Kennedy said. “Church bells make you introspective and reflective. I remember when 9/11 happened, church bells were rung at St. Francis de Sales to emphasize what happened that day; it was a calming sound.”