• Friday, March 29, 2024
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The fire next time

medieval cathedral

The medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris has been one of the landmark monuments adding glamour to the most beautiful city on earth. It has played that role for more than 850 years. The medieval philosopher and theologian John of Jandun described it as “That most glorious church of the most glorious Virgin Mary, mother of God (that) deservedly shines out, like the sun among stars”.

During afternoon of Monday 15 April, a mysterious fire broke out at the roof of the cathedral as renovation work was being carried out. Like Dante’s inferno, lighting up the Parisian skyline in a frightful display of angry fireworks. It burned for 15 hours as fire services fought hard to bring the flames under control. Thousands gathered to watch the grim spectacle, most of them in tears. Something from deep within me pulled at my heart strings when the church’s spire finally came down amidst the dark fumes and rubble.

Paris is the city of my youth. I studied there. Although a non-catholic, I remember attending mass once in that medieval cathedral. I enjoy Latin high mass and the languorous melody of sacred music. Notre-Dame is the epitome of everything I have ever loved about Paris.

Everybody has a passion or two. Two of mine are both old and unashamedly European: classical music and medieval cathedrals. Don’t ask me why – even I myself can’t tell the roots of those passions.

There is this thing about medieval cathedrals that speaks directly to my soul. For one thing, it’s their timeless feel. Like the Pyramid of Giza. I have visited the cathedrals of Clermont-Ferrand and Chartres, in addition to those of European cities such as Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Uppsala, Brussels, Cologne and Vienna. Above all, Westminster Abbey in London and the cathedrals of my beloved alma mater at Christ Church and the Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford. Their spires and their bells seem to strike a chord inside me that words cannot describe. Same for classical composers such as Monteverdi, Palestrina, Purcell, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.

You can imagine how I must felt watching on CNN as Notre-Dame was engulfed in flames. The original plan for the building was launched in 1160 by the Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully. The original site was said to have been a pagan shrine dedicated to the Gallo-Roman god Jupiter. A couple of churches were built on the site and were later demolished to make way for the new cathedral. Actual work was said to have commenced between 24 March and 25 April 1163, with the laying of the cornerstone in the presence of King Louis VII and Pope Alexander III. The edifice was completed more than a century later, in 1263.

Its architecture is of the old gothic style, with massive rose windows and beautiful stained glass; with priceless art works and religious artefacts adorning its walls. One of the most important is, of course, the Crown of Thorns, said to be the real one that Roman soldiers thrust on Jesus’ head during his agony on the way to Golgotha. It had been in the custody of a succession of Byzantine emperors in Constantinople. They had bequeathed it to France in exchange for her support with funds to fight the Ottoman Turks. Constantinople unfortunately fell to the Turks in 1453, but France has kept the Crown ever since.

Notre-Dame is visited by an estimated 12 million tourists annually– the most visited sight in the whole of France. It was deeply moving to see Christians, Muslims, Jews and even free-thinkers united in grief as they watched the conflagration engulf this monument to faith. A Jewish Rabbi solemnly read from the Book of Isaiah, where the Almighty proclaimed that His temple shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.

It would not be the first time that the cathedral had witnessed disaster. During 1791 it came under attack by the revolutionary mobs who saw it as a symbol of religious oppression. Parts of it have been rebuilt on at least two different occasions. Efforts have also been made to clean up the accumulated soot and grime going back almost a millennium.

For centuries, Notre-Dame has not only been a house of prayer; it has been a temple for the crowning of kings and emperors. The funerals of a succession of French presidents during the Third Republic have also been held there. Napoleon Bonaparte was famously crowned there. According to legend, when the Pope brought the crown to place on his head, Bonaparte seized it and grafted it upon his own head by himself. He was no doubt making the bold statement that he was beholden to no one – not even to His Holiness the Pope. The nineteenth century French writer Victor Hugo made the cathedral even more famous with his novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. When France was liberated from Nazi occupation in 1944, the event was celebrated at Notre-Dame. The Magnificat – the famous canticle of the Holy Virgin — was sung on that occasion.

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France has been united in grief. Messages of sympathy have come from far and wide. Some Є500 million have already been pledged by private donors towards the rebuilding project. In a sombre address to the nation, President Macron expressed deep sadness that this priceless monument that took a century to build could be destroyed in a matter of hours. He promised that a more beautiful Notre-Dame will emerge in 5 years.

Noted French philosopher and public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL, as he is popularly known), equally expressed his own shock “before the images of fire (and) devastation”; describing Notre Dame as “a treasure of civilization, both for those who believe in heaven and for those who do not. She represents the Europe of beauty, of holy hopes, of greatness and gentility. Like you, like everyone, I am heartbroken”. He quotes the poet Louis Aragon: “Nothing is as strong, not fire, not lightning, As my Paris defying danger; Nothing is as beautiful as this Paris of mine.”

Notre-Dame will be rebuilt. And we have no reason not to believe Emmanuel Macron when he promises that a more beautiful edifice will emerge from the ruins. France is the world intellectual capital of atheism. I have never met a more godless people in my life. For that, you have to blame the free-thinkers of the Enlightenment — Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot. They prepared the road to the violent revolution of 1789 that overthrew the ancien regime. Nothing wrong with that, except that they also bequeathed a legacy of a virulently anti-clerical, anti-religious spirit that continues to haunt France up to our very day.

Who knows what this fire might ultimately mean?

A building is just brick and mortar, of course. What matters ultimately is the inner life of the spirit. The French have sought happiness in material things and in the pursuit of intellectual excellence as behoves lovers of science, letters, mathematics and philosophy. But they are, also, sadly, among the most depressed and suicidal of peoples. Perhaps a new Notre-Dame might also be the harbinger of a new spiritual rebirth for the French people.

Contrary to what is imagined, atheism does not define the spiritual foundations of French civilisation. On the contrary. France has been the land of great mystics. Legend has it that the remnants of the Holy Family fled to France during the Roman persecution. Medieval French troubadours saw themselves as the Guardians of the Holy Grail. It is that forgotten France that is echoed in the chiming bells of its medieval cathedrals – Notre-Dame, Rheims, Chartres, Amiens, Strasbourg. A New France can be rebuilt on the foundations laid by giants such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Blaise Pascal, Louis de Montfort, Simone Weil, Gabriel Marcel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

 

Obadiah Mailafia