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Five years after a ruinous fire, the reopening of the cathedral restored it in full glory to the Paris skyline and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France.
Dec. 7, 2024, 5:13 p.m. ET
Five years after a fire that devoured its roof and nearly collapsed its walls, a renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral reopened its doors on Saturday, its centuries-old bell clanging, its 8,000-pipe organ first groaning — and then roaring back to life.
It was an emotional rebirth for one of the world’s most recognized monuments, a Gothic medieval masterpiece and cornerstone of European culture and faith.
“Brothers and sisters, let us enter now into Notre-Dame,” Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris, said before poking three times on the cathedral doors with the point of his staff, made with a beam of the roof that survived the fire.
As he pushed open the door, the sounds of brass instruments and the melodic voices of dozens of children singing in the cathedral choir filled the nave.
The ceremony restored the cathedral to the Parisian skyline in its full glory and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France at a time of political dysfunction, a stagnating economy and a bitter budget standoff that this week resulted in the toppling of the center-right government.
With the successful reopening of Notre-Dame, on a schedule that many had derided as too ambitious, France showed off its ability to execute major projects, as it did with the Summer Olympics, and exhibited its artistic and artisanal expertise.
