The doors of the newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris were officially reopened to the public during a ceremony on Saturday, five years after a blaze ravaged the iconic structure’s roof, frame, and spire. Source: CNA.
The celebration was attended by about 1500 people, including 40 heads of state, including US President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Authorities mobilised a security force of about 6000 police and gendarmes for the event, citing a “very high level of terrorist threat.”
Space was provided for up to 40,000 people outside the cathedral.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who was initially scheduled to speak on the cathedral’s forecourt to respect the law of separation between the Church and the state, wound up speaking inside the building due to inclement weather, as previously announced in a press release from the Archdiocese of Paris.
Expressing “the gratitude of the French nation” to the cathedral’s rebuilders, Mr Macron asserted that Notre Dame “tells us how much meaning and transcendence help us to live in this world.”
Breaking five years of silence, the bell of Notre Dame, known as the bourdon, rang out across Paris.
This was the first step in the reopening office, initiated by three knocks on the cathedral’s central portal, the Portal of the Last Judgement, by the Archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich.
The opening of the doors was set to the music of the polyphonic piece Totus Tuss, composed in 1987 by Henryk Gorecki during John Paul II’s visit to Poland, and sung by the 150 young members of the Maîtrise de Notre Dame.
“May the rebirth of this admirable Church be a prophetic sign of the renewal of the Church in France,” Pope Francis said in a letter read by the apostolic nuncio of France, Msgr Celestino Migliore, after a tribute to the firefighters who saved the 800-year-old cathedral from the flames and the French president’s speech.
“I invite all the baptised who will joyfully enter this cathedral to feel a legitimate pride and reclaim their faith heritage,” he added.
There followed the awakening and blessing of the great organ, a three-century-old instrument whose pipes had remained clogged with lead dust following the 2019 fire.
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Notre Dame Cathedral ‘back in the light’ after glorious reopening (By Solène Tadié, CNA)
