MOSCOW — Patriarch Alexy II yesterday consecrated 18 newly cast brass bells destined for Harvard University in a trade that will see the originals returned to Russia nearly 80 years after they were saved from Josef Stalin’s religious purges. The originals have hung for decades in the towers at Lowell House and Harvard Business School’s Baker Library.

American industrialist Charles Crane bought the bells from the Soviet Union in 1930, saving them from being melted down in purges that saw thousands of monks executed and churches and monasteries destroyed or turned into prisons, orphanages and warehouses.

“Without exaggeration, they can be called the best church art in modern history,” Patriarch Alexy said after a consecration ceremony with clouds of incense and priests in golden robes. The Russian Orthodox patriarch called the replica bells a “worthy replacement” for the original ensemble. “The bells will be sent on the same historic path that their predecessors took,” he said.

The original bells were cast in the 18th and 19th centuries and are decorated with etchings of Jesus Christ and Mary, as well as saints and angels. The largest, the Mother Earth Bell, weighs 13 tons and has a 700-pound clapper. The smallest weighs 22 pounds.

In Russia, the original bells will be returned to the Danilovsky Monastery, the patriarch’s residence.

The first will arrive in Moscow on September 12, with the others to be shipped in autumn 2008. Russian oil and metals tycoon Viktor Vekselberg is paying several million dollars to organize the exchange.

The deal agreed in March this year is the latest chapter in Mr. Vekselberg’s campaign to bring home Russia’s cultural heritage. Ranked no. 61 on Forbes billionaire’s list with a fortune of $10.4 billion, Mr. Vekselberg bought 15 tsarist-era Fabergé eggs from the estate of American publisher Malcolm Forbes in 2004 and returned them to Russia.