MOSCOW - Two big church bells with President Vladimir Putin's name on them were raised up to Russia's tallest bell tower Wednesday, replacing a pair that were cast down in 1930 as part of Soviet leader Josef Stalin's campaign against religion.
The bells — one weighing 27 metric tons (nearly 30 tons) and the other over 35 metric tons (38 tons) — were hoisted at the tower outside the Cathedral of the Assumption at Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery in Sergiyev Posad northeast of Moscow, news agencies and TV reports said.
The monastery is one of Russia's holiest sites, and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II presided at the ceremony, which came weeks after he blessed the bells in front of a large crowd of hushed believers in July.
Lettering in relief on the bells say they were made with during Putin's time as Russia's leader, a tradition church officials said goes back to the czarist era.
The bells were modeled after two that were destroyed as Stalin's campaign against religion raged, but are larger. They were made by Zil, a giant factory that made the limousines Stalin and other Soviet leaders rode in.
Under Stalin, church bells were smashed in cities and towns across the Soviet Union, and churches that were not torn down were used as breweries, factories, secret police facilities and for other purposes.
Restrictions on religion were relaxed in the late 1980s, and many Russians have returned to the fold of Orthodox Christianity, the country's dominant faith.
Church and Zil officials say they are planning a third, even bigger bell to replace one that weighed more than 60 tons.