A massive monument to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ will open to the public this week in the heart of one of Europe’s great capitals. 

For Notre Dame Cathedral has itself been resurrected, five and a half years after being ravaged by fire to the horror of the French, believers and unbelievers alike.

The cross-shaped structure will attract some 40,000 visitors per day, making it one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions. 

An army of literally thousands of artisans, artists, architects, designers and skilled labourers has restored the walls, roofs, ceilings, spire, bells, stained glass windows, paintings, furnishings and sculptures in the sanctuary.

A National Geographic writer, recently given a sneak preview of the cathedral’s ‘resurrection glory’, predicted that visitors will be ‘awestruck’ and ‘stupified’ by an entire cathedral polished and transfigured throughout, ‘brighter than any person alive has ever seen it’.

The immaculate whiteness of cut stone reportedly emanates a luminosity not seen in the cathedral for centuries; reminiscent of Haggai’s prophecy: The glory of the latter house will surely be even greater than of the former. 

Visitors will enter through the central Last Judgement Portal, a graphic portrayal of stark end-time realities. Walking clockwise through the sanctuary, they begin a symbolic journey from Darkness to Light, along the darkness of the north side towards the light of the south.

Paintings, stained glass windows and sculptures depicting Old Testament scenarios lead to chronological scenes from the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

The most-highly prized artifact on display is the Crown of Thorns, traditionally believed to be worn by Jesus during his crucifixion. Although its authenticity remains unproven, historians have verified it to be at least 1,600 years old.

‘Barbarian’

The tall, light and airy structures emphasising the intensely-colourful stained-glass were built at the high point of Gothic architecture in the 12th-14th centuries.

Gothic superseded the earlier Romanesque (or in England, Norman) darker and heavier interiors with their small windows and wall frescoes. Originally Gothic architecture was referred to as the French style.

The description of ‘Gothic’ only came into use during the Enlightment as a term of disparagement, meaning ‘barbarian’, uncouth.

Enlightenment thinkers wanted to return to the ‘pure’ classical forms of Greece and Rome.

Those of us with Protestant and evangelical backgrounds tend to view cathedrals as proud symbols of a by-gone marriage of church and state; a betrayal of the simplicity and humility of the gospel.

Claims of authenticity of relics of wood from the ark, or the cross, for example, or of bone from long-departed saints, leave us unimpressed. 

Yet over the years I have developed a deep awe and wonder of such magnificent buildings. In medieval society, the cathedral reflected the greater reality of the unseen world, the infinite, the timeless.

It embodied the view that Christ was ‘all in all’, the integration of society around Christ, held together by the cosmic Christ, the cornerstone of reality. 

The cathedral’s crossform–with the transept providing the horizontal of the cross, intersecting at the altar and separating the nave from the choir and sanctuary–not only reflected Christology but anthropology.

The cathedral layout mirrored the human head, arms, torso, legs. Man was a microcosm of the macrocosmos. Man was the temple of God: the altar was the heart.

Living church

As reflected in the restoration of Notre Dame, the cathedral integrated all the art forms, including architecture, sculpture, painting, stained glass, weaving, music and the liturgical choreography, with its rituals and processions.

It became an unparalleled and overwhelming example of the social function of Christian art: all the arts served the universal christocentric symbolism.

The building of the cathedral engaged virtually everyone in the city, directly or indirectly. It created jobs for many. It was the common focal point for the region.

Paradoxically, in secular Europe, cathedrals continue to be among the most visited tourist sites.

Cologne Cathedral is Germany’s most visited attraction with six million visitors each year, about the same as Milan’s famous cathedral. Strasbourg Cathedral attracts four million annually, while Gaudi’s still unfinished La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona draws three million visitors per annum.

These four cathedrals, together with Notre Dame, account for 34 million visitors annually between them. 

And all those visitors are exposed to testaments in stone and glass about God, Jesus and salvation.

They remind us of how interwoven the Christian story is with Europe’s past. They witness to the timeless truths which gave Europe her soul, her values, her lifesource.

Notre Dame is not merely a tourist attraction. It is also a living church, with five services per day, seven on Sundays, and two thousand church services per year.

Long after many of our modern church buildings have been demolished and replaced, I suspect Notre Dame will continue to witness to the One who died on the cross to reconcile humankind to the Creator.

Jeff Fountain, Director of the Schuman Centre for European Studies. This article was first published on the author's blog, Weekly Word.