Notre Dame Cathedral to miss first Christmas in centuries

Friday, Dec. 20, 2019

PARIS (AP) -- Notre Dame Cathedral kept holding services during two world wars as a beacon of hope amid bloodshed and fear.

It took a fire in peacetime to finally stop Notre Dame from celebrating Christmas Mass for the first time in more than two centuries.

As the lights stay dim in the once-invincible 855-year-old Paris landmark, officials are trying hard to focus on the immediate task of keeping Notre Dame alive in exile.

It has decamped its rector, famed statue, liturgy and Christmas celebrations to a new temporary home pending the restoration works, just under a mile away, at another Gothic church in Paris.