The reader called us after reading what Father Zbigniew Pędziwiatr said in court about ringing bells at noon. We wrote about it in the article: An Interesting Court Hearing of Bolesławiec Parish Priest Zbigniew Pędziwiatr.

When speaking about the history of the Angelus prayer, the Bolesławiec priest omitted what our reader considers an important history of the war with the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. He also omitted the fact that Pope Callixtus III initiated the ringing of the Angelus at noon in 1456 in order to call the Christian world to holy war. This is confirmed by secular and ecclesiastical sources on the history of ringing the Angelus at noon.

In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (1227–41) ordered that the Angelic Salutation be recited in the morning and evening, always at the sound of a bell. In 1287, the Synod of Exeter (England) recommended that priests accustom the faithful to reciting the Hail Mary three times a day. It was only Callixtus III (1378–1458) who introduced the ringing of the Angelus at noon.

How did Pope Callixtus III turn the angel Gabriel’s peaceful greeting to the Virgin Mary and the announcement of the birth of the child Jesus into a call to war and to recapture Constantinople from the infidels?

The main aim of Callixtus III’s pontificate was to recapture Constantinople from the Turks. In 1453, Mehmed II the Conqueror (1432–1481) captured Constantinople, bringing the Byzantine Empire’s era to an end. The following years of his reign were years of conquest: the sultan seized territories belonging to Byzantium and Venice, as well as possessions in Morea (the Peloponnese).

Pope Callixtus III sent legates to the rulers of European states, asking them to organize a crusade. He also began gathering an army and building a fleet on the Tiber,

He set the holy war against the infidels for March 1, 1456, and from that day ordered the Angelus to be rung three times a day to ask for divine help during the war against the Turks.

The fleet under Cardinal Trevisano sailed from Naples and fought a victorious skirmish with the Turks near Lesbos. The pope also ordered that money from public collections throughout Europe be handed over to the crusade’s leader, János Hunyady, who, thanks to financial support, managed to drive the Turks back near Belgrade on July 22, 1456, and wound Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror himself.

János Hunyady was respected and esteemed in the Middle Ages as a brilliant strategist. When the king of Hungary and the magnates left the country to face certain defeat against the vastly superior Turkish army of approximately 150,000 men, János Hunyady, possessing only elite cavalry units maintained at his own expense, called townspeople and peasants to arms, placing approximately 50,000–60,000 men on combat readiness. In a bold attack, he destroyed the Turkish fleet blockading Belgrade on the Danube and broke through to the city. The decisive clash took place on July 21 and 22, 1456. Hunyady managed to seize the Turkish camp and capture the artillery positions. More importantly, the sultan was wounded in the confusion. When news of this reached the Turkish ranks, panic broke out. The battle turned into a massacre. Fifty thousand Turkish bodies were left on the battlefield, and another 25,000 were killed by Balkan peasants.

“In Hungary, everyone knows that the bells at 12:00 commemorate the crusade against the Turks,” the reader says. “The sound of the bells at noon is also broadcast on Hungarian radio,” he adds.