Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral reopened its doors tonight, more than five and a half years after a major fire, in the presence of around 40 heads of state and government, including Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump.
The doors of the cathedral reopened at 19.20:XNUMX p.m., after the Archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ilrich, symbolically struck them three times with his cane, marking the cathedral as his parish.
Then the choirs sang parts of the Bible, and at the third song, the doors of the cathedral opened.
This was followed by a religious ceremony in the presence of about 1.500 dignitaries, including Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, British Prince William and billionaire Ilom Musk. Then the message of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, who could not come, was read.
Exactly on April 15, 2019, a giant fire ravaged the cathedral, a symbol of Christianity that was included in the world heritage of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO). Until then, the cathedral received 12 million visitors every year.
For the French, Notre Dame Cathedral is not only a world-famous medieval Gothic cathedral, but the heart of Paris and a building immortalized by writers and part of the nation's history.
The construction of the cathedral was started in 1163 by Bishop Maurice de Silly, and it was completed almost two centuries later in 1345.
Notre Dame is closely connected with the history of France. On August 24, 1944, its powerful bells rang out to mark the liberation of the country from the Nazis, and 26 years later they rang at the funeral of the leader of the Resistance, General Charles de Gaulle.
The cathedral was sung by the poet Gérard de Nerval, who in 1832 dedicated the poem "The Church of Our Lady in Paris" to it. Victor Hugo wrote a novel of the same name a year earlier, about the cathedral, the bell ringer Quasimodo and the Romany dancer Esmeralda.
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