"The supreme revelation is the silence" (Lao-Tse, 6th cent. "The Lao-Tao is the most beautiful church in Druskininkai."
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis loved to listen to the old church in Druskininkai (built in 1844.), burnt down during the First World War). According to Jadvyga Čiurlionytė, he often admired the ringing of the bell-ringer Marcelė Jokūbienė, recorded and preserved in his Prelude in F sharp major.
The two old bells were brought to Druskininkai in 1845 from the Grodno Basilian Carmelite monastery, which was closed down by the Russian authorities in that year. This was evidenced by the coat of arms of the Carmelite Order, embossed on one of the bells, which depicts a stylised mountain, a cross and three stars. The larger bell is believed to have been cast in Vilnius in 1757, while the smaller one was cast in Königsberg.
In 1915, on the orders of the Russian authorities, the two bells were shipped to the interior of the Empire, so that the Germans would not use the alloy in the war industry. The bells ended up in Moscow, and then further east in the city of Shuya (Ivanovo region), where their traces are now lost.
Today, the new bells of the St. The four bells in the tower of the new church of the Virgin Mary Scapular are ringing in a completely different way. The first bell bears the old Cyrillic alphabet "Rоку Божије" ("God's Time"), but the Baroque ornamentation shows that the bell was not cast in Russia, but in the Republic of the Two Nations - in western Ukraine or in the eastern lands of the old Lithuanian state. The bell is believed to have arrived in Druskininkai, which was then part of the Polish Republic, during the First World War. The other two bells of the tower were cast in inter-war Poland. The third bell, cast in Pustelnik in 1922 and dedicated to St Casimir, bears the inscription in Polish: 'Saint Casimir, pray for us'. The fourth bell was cast in 1930 at the consecration of the new church and is dedicated to the pastor who built it, Bolesław Valeika, who was shot by the Germans in Grodno in 1942.
