Bells are a symbol of harmony, their ringing is said to connect heaven and earth. Actually. Sometimes the ringing of the bells also divides spiritual and secular spheres – for example in Ramersdorf, where a resident of the pilgrimage church of St. Maria complained vehemently about this form of “unnecessary noise pollution” at a town meeting. And he was not alone in this view. A majority of the Ramersdorfers present agreed to his proposal that the duration and volume of the ringing should be reduced.
The protest led to the municipal department for climate and environmental protection dealing with the bells of the Maria Ramersdorf church and carrying out noise measurements. However, since these did not show that the permissible limit values were exceeded, the authorities rejected the residents’ request – a judgment that the Ramersdorf-Perlach district committee has now unanimously agreed with.
Peter Friedrich will probably not appreciate this assessment. At the citizens’ meeting in July, he complained about the “bell-loving pastor” and described the ringing of the church – after all, one of the oldest and most important pilgrimage churches in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising – as “a danger to the mental health of the residents”. According to Friedrich, who has only recently moved to Aribonenstrasse, there is sometimes a 15-minute continuous ringing that is “unbearable”. He also criticized the ringing of the full bell on the hour between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.: “They’re ringing at full blast, with everything that’s hanging up there”. However, the city pastor rejected this information in a statement to the city hall. According to him, the bells of Maria Ramersdorf ring on the hour for a maximum of four minutes at a time. And there is no such thing as a 15-minute continuous ringing.
According to guidelines no noise pollution
In general, explains the environmental protection department, the ringing of bells is part of the practice of religion for liturgical reasons, which is why the statutory noise protection limits only apply here to a limited extent. The situation is different, however, when operating a tower clock with hourly chimes, which is subject to the guidelines on immission control. According to the department’s statement, the town hall took measurements on this point – from the first floor of a building on Aribonenstrasse. The result: With a level of 47 decibels, the value was well below the permissible 60 decibels. “Therefore, the time bell of the Maria Ramersdorf church did not exceed the relevant immission guideline value for the daytime period,” the authority concludes. And therefore – contrary to the wishes of the citizens’ assembly – “no measures to reduce noise emissions should be taken”.