Church bell made from recycled Ukraine war weapons arrives in Prague

A new bell forged from the remains of weapons used in the war in Ukraine has arrived in Prague, where it will be installed at the Church of the Holy Saviour by Charles Bridge in Old Town. Crafted in a Dutch foundry, the bell’s body incorporates spent shell casings provided through the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague.

The initiative, which symbolically transforms instruments of war into a source of peace, was spearheaded by Dutch Ambassador to Prague Daan Feddo Huisinga. The bell's clapper—a crucial piece that strikes the bell—is made from the torso of a Russian S-300 missile.

The bell, known as The Bell of Freedom, weighs more than 220 kilograms and will be installed in one of the church’s towers on June 5. The blessing ceremony is expected to coincide with a visit by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Czech President Petr Pavel.

The project draws on a historical tradition of creating bells from the spoils of war. Vienna’s Pummerin bell, for instance, was cast from captured Turkish cannons in the 17th century. In the case of Prague, the idea was sparked by Huisinga’s interest in restoring bells to churches in Czechia.

His discussions with the Sanctus Castulus association, which has worked to restore bells for Prague’s churches, led to the idea of creating a bell from materials linked to the current war in Ukraine.

Ondřej Boháč, a representative of Sanctus Castulus, described how he collected the weapon remnants from the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague. Among them was the piece of the S-300 missile, which was transformed into the steel heart of the bell by a company in Ostrava and a blacksmith from Olomouc.

The bell’s body, however, remains largely bronze, as required for sound quality. Spent shell casings made of brass were chemically refined to extract zinc and create the appropriate alloy for the bell.

The Church of the Holy Saviour has been without a full set of bells for over a century. Since 1916, only a single bell, cast in the 19th century by Czech bellmaker Karel Bellmann, has remained. Two larger bells were requisitioned by the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, and no replacements were ever built—until now.

The new bell is expected to hang in the church’s north tower, visible from Charles Bridge. Whether it retains its current name, The Bell of Freedom, or receives a new one will be up to the parish, led by priest Tomáš Halík, who is expected to bless the bell during the high-profile visit of the Dutch and Czech heads of state.

The bell’s installation is part of a broader effort by the Sanctus Castulus association to restore the bell heritage of Czech churches, including projects for St. Gall, St. Castulus, St. Giles, and the symbolic bell #9801, representing the 9,801 bells taken by the Nazis during World War II.