CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Eighteen huge brass bells rescued from a Moscow monastery nearly 80 years ago during a Soviet-era crackdown on religion and donated to Harvard University are being returned to Russia.

A delegation from Harvard on Tuesday signed an agreement with officials from the Russian Orthodox Church to restore the bells to their original home at the Danilovsky Monastery by June 2008.

In return, Harvard will receive 18 replicas, which are being cast at a foundry in Russia.

“This has been a gradual process of agreement, but today, there’s actual ink on the paper,” a professor of comparative religion at Harvard, Diana Eck, told the Boston Globe. “It’s a very important thing, not just for the Russian Orthodox Church, but for so many people in Russia, for whom this represents one of the great historic bell sets of their cultural heritage.”

The bells, which have rung in the towers at Lowell House and Harvard Business School’s Baker Library for decades, were cast in the 18th and 19th centuries and are decorated with etchings of Jesus Christ and Mary, saints, and angels.

The largest, the Mother Earth Bell, weighs 13 tons and has a 700-pound clapper.

The bells were bought by industrialist Charles Crane from the Soviet government in 1930, a time when Joseph Stalin was killing thousands of monks and destroying monasteries across the vast nation.

The Orthodox Church pressured Harvard for their return since the demise of the Soviet Union.

“We are thankful to Americans for saving these bells from melting by the communists,” Patriarch Alexy II, who resides at the monastery, said at the signing ceremony according to the Moscow Times.

Their return was made possible by Russian metals tycoon Viktor Vekselberg, who is paying several million dollars for the exchange, Ms. Eck said.

Mr. Vekselberg would not say exactly how much he is paying. “These bells are priceless for Russia, and we’d pay any price to get them back,” he told the Times.