In one of Greece’s last remaining bell foundries in the small, western town of Paramythia, the Galanopoulos brothers are busy casting church bells heading to Ethiopia and Romania, pouring red-hot molten metal into moulds of varying sizes.
Their family-run business has been around for 215 years. These days, exports keep it alive.
“More than half of our production goes abroad,” said Thomas Galanopoulos, 59, the elder of the two, wreathed in smoke rising from melting copper and tin.
At its peak, the foundry was producing 120 tonnes of bells a year for steeples across Greece, he said. Now, it’s down to 50 tonnes and their main customers are churches in the Balkans and Africa, while they also ship to Israel, Lebanon and Australia.
The Greek Orthodox Church permeates daily life in Greece, a country dotted with churches and chapels in even its most remote corners. But when the crisis hit, domestic demand collapsed.
