On Monday, millions of people around the world watched in real-time as the world-famous Notre Dame Cathedral burned to the ground in Paris.
The buildings spire, and most of the roof were lost to the fire, but thankfully firefighters were able to salvage the main structure, including the cathedral’s towers.
Financial support is already pouring in, but it’s not the only support that Paris is seeing. Starting Monday afternoon, cathedrals around the world began ringing their bells in solidarity for the cities loss of their 850-year-old cathedral.
International support from churches around the world
On Tuesday, in the early afternoon, the St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City joined in, ringing its bells to honor the city of Paris. Fox 29 shared a live video of the special moment from Manhattan, of which you can watch below.
Twitter user, Robert Jago shared a video of the Montreal Notre Dame cathedral, ringing it’s bells on Monday, pointing out that “they never ring midday.”
Another Twitter user, Simon Plourde, shared a similar video of the Montreal cathedral ringing its bells in support of the Paris tragedy.
“Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal bells are ringing as a sign of support for #notredamedeparis,” Simon Plourde, wrote. “Heartbreaking.”
St. James Cathedral in Seattle rang it’s bells Monday afternoon, following the fire. Father Michael G. Ryan, shared that he rang the bells as a sign of hope to Paris.
“The archbishop of Paris, part of his response to this has been to ask all the churches of Paris to ring their bells. I thought what an interesting thing because usually ringing bells is a sign of joy. We’re going to ring the bells of St. James to tell the world we’re with them,” Father Ryan said to K5 News.
Catholics love symbols. Notre Dame has been important for 800 years,” Father Ryan added. “It’s not just a monument. It’s a place of prayer. It’s going to be a terrible blow to the people there as well as the people who have visited and love it.”
In Wisconsin, St. Joseph The Workman Cathedral, rang its bells at 5 p.m. on Monday, right after Bishop William Callahan, the Diocese of La Crosse called for churches in his diocese to do so. He wanted the churches to show support for Paris by doing so.
What is next for Notre Dame?
Resurrection.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the 12th-century cathedral would be rebuilt. In a tweet he sent out, the President promised to rebuild the countries treasure and pledged his commitment to do so.
In a statement, Becky Clark, The Church of England’s director of cathedrals and church buildings, emphasized that no matter the level of destruction, a spirit of a cathedral always survives a devastating blow like this one.
“But no matter the destruction, the spirit of what it means to be a cathedral can and does survive such catastrophes,” Clark said in a statement.