By John J. MetzlerPARIS — We have witnessed a modern-day miracle. The splendid Notre Dame Cathedral, the heart and soul of France which was scarred and damaged by the terrible fire of April 2019, has been rebuilt, renovated and revitalized, through an amazing and painstaking restoration effort encompassing both the private and public sector.
On Saturday Dec. 7 and Sunday 8 Dec. 8, Notre Dame hosts the grand reopening ceremony including the Archbishop of Paris Laurent Bernard Ulrich, President Emmanuel Macron and foreign dignitaries among them President-elect Donald Trump.
The 12th Century Gothic edifice, which has stood firm through the turbulent centuries as a symbol of Paris, has indeed been reborn.
The near apocalyptic inferno of 2019 had shocked, stunned and saddened even largely secular France to tears. From those tears rose the tide of civic, emotional and religious fervor which started a massive rebuilding effort at a time when some scoffed that the challenge was nearly insurmountable. It was, but the challenge was overcome by a great national revitalization effort.
This writer has seen and visited Notre Dame many times over the years; Yet contrary to the other great cathedrals of Reims, Bourges or even Chartres, Notre Dame’s unique appeal was that it was at the very center of Paris, the spiritual heart and soul of France.
The key to the rebuilding wasn’t the effort per se but the exacting precision, the meticulous loving detail, the reestablishing near spiritual quality of the massive edifice which few of us thought possible to restore so exactly, so well and yes, so soon.
Following the inferno, French president Emmanuel Macron vowed, “We will rebuild Notre Dame de Paris” by 2024. This ambitious goal opened a tug of war between some government officials who viewed the Church as a museum or monument and the Archdiocese of Paris who saw the Cathedral as an active Catholic Church and place of worship.
The 1905 Law of the Separation of Church and State enshrined a codification of secularism. Yet the French State actually owns the cathedral!
But rebuilding Notre Dame to the meticulous standards for its past glory? Few people assumed this as possible. The cost, the availability of materials, and qualified builders, remained towering challenges. Thus, one of the last official acts before reopening the Cathedral on Dec. 8 was a totally secular address by the president profoundly thanking over 2,000 artisans and builders for their yeoman service to restoring Notre Dame’s heritage to France.
Over the past few years until recently, the sides of Notre Dame were covered in scaffolding, supports and construction cranes; Ironically the Cathedral’s majestic front twin bell towers seemed thankfully unaffected. However, the 8 bells of the North Tower were later removed and cleaned. Its massive bells marked seminal events in French history such as the liberation of Paris on Aug. 25, 1944.
Miraculously the magnificent medieval stained-glass colored windows survived too.
For the past few years, the Cathedral became a massive work site of artisans, using traditional materials and building techniques, recreating the historic perfection of the ages.
For example:
- The Cathedral walls, vaults and columns, grayed by soot of the ages and blackened by the fire were cleaned painstakingly, an area covering (42,000 sq. meters) 450,000 square feet. Most of the stone was undamaged but scarred. Indeed, the most noticeable feature of the renovation emerges as the sheer luminosity of the cleaned limestone blocks. The Altar, too, has been refurbished.
- An enduring image of the inferno was the massive fire on the wooden roof which appeared to many as the death knell for North Dame. All (100 meters) 300 feet of the roof exploded in the conflagration and none of the 800-year-old timbers survived. Yet the decision was made to replace the timbers with oak from French forests; Over 1,200 oaks had to be found standing tall at (13 meters) 40 feet long. The wood was hand-sawn and hewed exactly as the original beams were in the 13th century!
- The Eugene Viollet-le-Duc spire, added in the 19th century, once an iconic symbol of the Cathedral, collapsed but has now been replaced and topped by the golden rooster of France. The famed gargoyles have been reconstructed too guarding the edifice.
- The Great Organ from the 18th century, a unique symbol of the Church, was restored all 8,000 pipes; cleaned, restored and reassembled.
Notre Dame stands majestically along the Seine as an enduring spiritual symbol of France.
John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014).
Free Press International
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