Apolda (dpa/th) - Three centuries after the first bell was cast in Apolda, a bell for the church in the parish of Kapellendorf was publicly produced on Monday - in front of several hundred curious people. "The public casting show is intended to commemorate the first bell casting in Apolda 300 years ago," explained Volker Heerdegen from the parish church council of the Evangelical Church in Apolda, which also looks after the church in Kapellendorf.
The bell, which was made by bell founder Rudolf Perner from Passau, weighs around 320 kilograms. Whether the bell casting was successful can only be judged after the bronze has cooled down completely - in about a week.
The public show casting was the prelude to the anniversary "300 years of bell casting in Apolda". In 1722, the bell founder Johann Christoph Rose from Volkstedt - today a district of Lutherstadt Eisleben in Saxony-Anhalt - was commissioned to cast two bells for the new Lutheran town church in Apolda. He became a resident and built a permanent foundry with a subsidy from the local church treasury. According to the church community, one of the first two bells cast in Apolda still rings today in the tower of the Lutheran Church.
