Five years after a devastating fire, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris will reopen to the public on Dec. 7 with a globally broadcast ceremony followed by a string of Masses, concerts and other events, officials announced on Wednesday.
“We are going to recover the focal point of our life as a church,” Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris said at a news conference.
Last week, Notre-Dame’s bells rang together for the first time since the fire in April 2019.
France’s Catholics are also “very eager to welcome back the whole world under the cathedral’s vaults,” he added. Once reopened, about 14 million to 15 million yearly visitors are expected at Notre-Dame, a Gothic medieval masterpiece that was among the world’s most visited monuments before the fire shut it down.
Archbishop Ulrich will strike the doors of the cathedral with his staff and officially reopen them during a religious ceremony attended by Catholic dignitaries, foreign officials and donors who contributed to the renovation.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, who had vowed to reopen the landmark within five years of the fire, is expected to give a short speech in front of the cathedral ahead of the ceremony, which will be followed by a concert. Previous suggestions that Mr. Macron might speak inside the cathedral had sparked criticism that he was flouting France’s strict secularism rules.
The cathedral will celebrate its first Mass on Dec. 8 to consecrate the altar, which will receive the relics of several saints. Mr. Macron and about 170 bishops from France and elsewhere are expected to attend.
A Mass for the general public will be offered later that day, and visitors will be able to enter the renovated cathedral for the first time since April 15, 2019, when flames tore through its wood and lead roofing, destroyed the iconic spire and seriously endangered its stability.
Officials said it was too early to provide a guest list for the ceremonies, but Pope Francis has said that he would not attend.
Although some renovation work will continue after December, the reopening will mark the end of an enormous, complex effort to restore the cathedral to its original state, despite delays caused by Covid-19 lockdowns and concerns over the toxic lead fallout from the blaze.
“The challenge of rebuilding in five years has been successfully met,” Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, Notre-Dame’s rector, said at the news conference. He added: “It shows that in this period of doubt and of questioning, if we remain united around a common goal, we can achieve the impossible.”
More than a week of celebrations will follow the reopening, including Masses for the firefighters who saved the building and the roughly 2,000 workers and craftsmen who helped renovate it as well as concerts. The cathedral will be open to the public in the afternoon to 10 p.m. before gradually returning to its normal early morning-evening schedule.
To help manage the flow of tourists and pilgrims to Notre-Dame’s interior, now stripped of ash, lead dust and centuries of grime, the cathedral will set up a free online reservation system and release a smartphone app guide. At first, only individual visitors will be permitted; the cathedral will begin accepting tour groups in the spring of 2025.
France’s culture minister had suggested last month that Notre-Dame charge an entrance fee to help fund the upkeep of the country’s thousands of churches and religious monuments. But Archbishop Ulrich repeated on Wednesday that French Catholic authorities were strenuously opposed to the idea. The French state owns the cathedral, but the French Catholic Church runs it.
Mr. Macron’s office portrayed the reopening as another “French success” coming after the smooth organization of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
In all, about 843 million euros, or nearly $900 million, from about 340,000 donors has poured in since the fire. The bulk has been used for the restoration thus far, and about €143 million will be used to continue work on the cathedral’s exterior, including the sacristy and the flying buttresses, which could take another three years.
“At the time of the fire, it was not in great shape,” Philippe Jost, the head of the cathedral’s reconstruction task force, said at Wednesday’s news conference. “You’ll have to get used to seeing the cathedral with scaffolding.”
An investigation continues into the cause of the blaze, but a definitive cause may never be determined. The leading theories among investigators are that it was sparked by an electrical short-circuit or a discarded cigarette.
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