It was like stepping into middle age and again with a startling horror Cathedral Church of Our Lady it would have inspired the 14th century, when the light from the rose windows created a kaleidoscope of colors on the creamy pale walls, a hundred years before liturgical smoke and city pollution had darkened them.
Thus the church had been completed in 1345 and had appeared, lifted up Paristhen a city of 200,000 inhabitants from the Île de la Cité in the middle of the river Seine, which bifurcates the capital of Gaul.
And the bells rang: Burdon, sent in 1683, baptized Emmanuel by Louis XIV, his patron, and considered him one of the most beautiful. Europecenturiata in F sharp as he had done.
Notre Dame was a monumental achievement in the 12th and 13th centuries. His resurrection after a devastating fire, which threatened to demolish the entire building, is a monumental work of the 21st century.
Saturday’s official opening, which is described by the President as a symbol of “the pride of France”. Emmanuel Macronit was a diplomatic as well as an ecclesiastical occasion.
Macron comes to sit in the middle of the following domestic political storm the resignation of his prime minister and a government of three months. Last Wednesday’s vote of no confidence was moved from left to right.
With Michel Barnier resigning from his government, Macron held a series of emergency meetings with political leaders in an attempt to find a new prime minister who would form a government between the left, the center and the conservative right, including but excluding the hard-left France Unbowred (LFI) and the far National Rally (RN), which the new a vote of no confidence would survive. The Socialist Party (PS) and the Prasinorum (EELV) will end up recruiting the left wing to any new administration. New Popular Front (NFP) he won that coalition in the general elections, taking most of the seats in July.
The Elysée had invited 100 VIP guests, including 50 heads of state. He was then appointed President of the United States Donald Trump and the very present first lady Jill Biden, the prince of Wales, the president of Italy Sergio Mattarella, the president of Greece Katerina Sakellaropoulou, the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the monarchs of Belgium, Spain and Monaco were expected, together with the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and the Emir of Qatar. . However, the Pope will not be present, having declined an invitation to visit Corsica this week.
Macron addressed VIPs in the street outside the church, out of respect for France’s secular tradition of separating church and state. But the threat of high winds – often considered an “act of God” by insurance companies – forced everyone in, Macron and his speech.
Standing outside the burning cathedral on the night of April 15, 2019, Macron gave the building as from the ashes in five years Smoke still rising from the wounded blow, the roof destroyed, the chimney collapsed, taking with it the old stone, the promise seemed a little more than desirable, the unforgivable work, the promise made to the wounded city, country and world; but that which was more likely to be fulfilled.
This indeed has a cathedral he rose again like a phoenix in five years and eight months the herculean effect is the result of the president’s driven determination, the support of the global community, the spirit of cooperation and collaboration and the simple craft of tradition.
For the past five years, the cathedral has been described as the “building site of the century”. After the fire, French heritage officials and architects set out to restore it. Before the repairs could even begin, the pegmat around the dome, melted by the heat at the time of the fire, had to be pulled up and removed, along with the site and the area around it – contaminated by tiny particles of lead from the cathedral’s roof. – to be cleaned It would be necessary to restore 1,000 oak trees the foresta structure with a pitched leaden roof, which was called a forest because of the quantity of wood involved, and adapted for rebuilding. About 250 companies have been repaired, together with 2,000 workers and Craftsmen – carpenters carving beams and masons cutting stones to replace tools damaged by traditional tools.
It cost €700m, out of €850m of donations, large and small, that poured in from around the world after the fire. The €150m that remained will have to carry out further “urgent exterior renovations” in the cathedral, according to Philippe Jost, who is visiting the restoration after Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed by Macron to run the project; He died in a climbing accident in August 2013
For those who remember the famous fire of the dark cathedral, the monument was rebuilt. Norman Foster, a British architect, describes the reaction of visitors today as “a new shock”.
The BBC said: “We take the patina of the old to turn the old back … something that we don’t think is clearly colored before. It is a paradox that brings him back to his first roots.”
Notre-Dame de Paris, whose construction began around 1163 and was completed in the middle of the 14th century, was an icon of French religious and political history. It received the Crown of Thorns — a relic believed to have been worn by Jesus — in 1239, became the Temple of Reason after the 1889 French Revolution, and saw the crown of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. Between 1845 and 1867 it underwent a major restoration. under the direction of the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who added a spire to the medieval building, and dug a staff covering under the floor of the nave. During the 1944 Liberation of Paris, the Magnificat Hymn – or Mary’s Hymn – was sung in the cathedral as it was Saturday evening. The funerals of five French presidents, including Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, were held here. As one of the main landmarks of the city, the cathedral received about 13 million visitors every year before the fire – a figure that church authorities now expect to reach fifteen million.
while VIP guests took refuge inside the cathedral from the storm, the the clerics were more robust in order to maintain the purpose of religious rites. The Archbishop of Paris cried out to Our Lady standing outside the cathedral, open your gates”; within three it sounded knocking.
Three times Laurentius archbishop, Ulric was elected he knocked at the doors of the cathedral: the choir of the cathedral answered three times with psalm 121: I will lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where help will come to me.
After the third answer, the doors were opened to reveal the archbishop, carrying a staff, with which he struck the door, which he had made of a beam. the forest who survived the 2019 fire.
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Under the gate of the church he stood surrounded by two deacons. It was the first time Ulrich entered his seat, his cathedral, in an official religious capacity: the pope named him archbishop of Paris in April 2022, three years after the fire.
Entering Our Lady, after Macron and the first lady Brigitte. and Paris Major Anne Hidalgo, Ulric did not worship at the altar, which was not consecrated. That will happen on the Sunday below the first mass.
There followed another long ovation for the fighters of Paris who extinguished the flames five years ago and for Philippe Jost, who succeeded in restoring the plan after the death of General Georgelin.
Macron addresses those gathered.
“The liturgy stands before you to express the gratitude of the French nation … to all those who saved, helped and rebuilt Notre-Dame de Paris. Everyone present is grateful that we are giving Notre-Dame to Catholics, Paris, France and the whole world,” he said.
“The bell of Notre-Dame rings again.” They followed our history. We have never heard their voice.
He recalled: “The image of the flames devouring the ship, the spire falling…hours of fighting against the fire…”.
Macron praised the bravery of the fighters, who stopped the flames at the bell towers, which, if consumed, would have brought down the stone structure.
“We decided to rebuild Notre-Dame more beautiful than ever in five years. To make it possible, there was an unusual fraternity from all continents, all religions, all fortunes… we have discovered what nations can do, we know the impossible.
“This cathedral is a happy metaphor of what kind of nation and what the world is like. The world finds the cathedral built and held as a treasure of the lesson of fragility, humility and readiness. Tonight we share joy and pride. Long live Notre-Dame de Paris, Long live the Republic, Long live France.
Then the archbishop proceeded with the religious ceremony words: “Stir up the organ. Let the praise of God be heard.
The revival of the organ involved a dialogue between the archbishop and the instrument, founded by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in the 19th century. The fire would have survived, but eight thousand of its pipes, contaminated with lead particles from the roof and the destroyed vent, had to be removed, cleaned, assembled, and the water extinguished the flame. The next steps, which took six months, were completed at night, when the cutting and sectioning of the buildings had ceased.
Meeting at the statue of Notre-Dame de Paris. Located at the east-eastern column, this Virgin and Child was prayed in the 14th century after the 1860s. He escaped near destruction by the fire: the beam of the fighters at his feet, who had fallen from the roof, and cracked before him without touching him. He returned to the cathedral on the 15th of November, with a procession of more than 30,000 people.
The service ends with the song Te Deum, a song of praise that is celebrated in the fourth century and whose text is attributed to Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan (339-397).
The inaugural Mass will be celebrated on Sunday with Royals, princes of the state and VIPs and in the presence of 170 Bishops from France and elsewhere, as well as priests of 106 parishes in Paris. The central act of the Mass will be the consecration of the cathedral’s new altar. There will be a “fraternal buffet” to take some of the “poor capital”.
The first public open mass will be held at 6.30 pm on Sunday. Worshipers who wish to attend these and subsequent masses in the cathedral must reserve places. “We have a great thirst to welcome the whole world under the vaults of the cathedral,” said the archbishop.