I spent my early years in Scotland marinating in the shadow of Castle Rock, gazing up at Edinburgh Castle and surrounded by ancient buildings. My first cathedral experience was St. Giles Cathedral. Despite being a monument to Presbyterianism, the Church of Scotland, the steeple is a richly ornamented crown and the Thistle Chapel brims with detailed and often whimsical wooden carvings. It is a testament to ingenuity and craftsmanship. (craftspersonship?)
I have always been a fan of religiously inspired architectural marvels such as Notre Dame de Paris, the Hagia Sophia or the Gurudawara Sahib (The Golden Temple). Due to their prime geographical locations and fluctuating cultural relevance, these buildings often have complicated histories of disaster, restoration, consecration and desecration.
As a teenager, I kept a list of the monumental Gothic cathedrals and abbeys of Europe that I had seen. I was proud there were more than twenty.
I first saw Notre Dame de Paris, the most visited of France’s eighty-seven cathedrals in 1974 as a teenager during my trip to Europe in the summer after high school and before the start of university. Unbelievably, I did not discover the adjacent and lovelier Ste Chapelle until I was over forty.
I drew from the limited knowledge of my Grade 11 art history course and studied the architecture of the naves, transepts, choirs and rose windows. I searched for Romanesque versus Gothic features and examined the fanned stone ceilings. I explained to anyone who would listen about the architectural miracle of the flying buttresses that allowed the stretching of these buildings to unprecedented heights. I thought about the skills and optimism of the thousands of stonemasons and carpenters employed in the creation of these monuments.
Being a weary, impoverished backpacking teenager, these cool damp spaces illuminated with the jewel-like reds, blues and greens from the stained glass windows and scented with the ritual incense and wax from the votive candles were timeless places of refuge and contemplation. As I grew older, it seemed that every decade or so I would revisit Paris and take stock of my life since the previous visit. What had worked? What had failed? Where, why and with whom was I going next?
In the aftermath of the Notre Dame fire, some have justifiably commented on the unrepentant evils of the Catholic corporation (distinct from personal Catholic faith) and the patriarchal, evangelical and colonial values that these monuments represent. Humanities achievements and failings are best understood in their historical context and without resorting to retrospective condescension.
Notre Dame de Paris was built eight hundred years ago in Medieval Europe, a time when the most revered female, the Virgin Mary was celebrated for the impossible combination of chastity and maternity. The remainder of female mortals were restricted to any of the subordinate positions of spinster, wife, mother, queen, widow, repentant temptress or martyr. The role of the female was defined by her relationship to a more powerful male.
I think of it as a time when women achieved agency through deception, manipulation, cross-dressing and behaving for acceptance into the male world or by retreating into a nunnery. For many women, the veneration of the Virgin Mary replaced the divine worship of God. These Marians prayed for fertility, the health of their children and release from oppression. I like to remember all the women and other oppressed minorities who found solace and hope in the sacred spaces of these cathedrals.
My favourite cathedral is Notre Dame de Chartres. Chartres Cathedral also has survived multiple restorations, reconstructions and three major fires. Its distinctive asymmetrical spires rise above the cornfields that flash past the windows in a Van Gogh painting sort of way as the train hurtles towards Chartres from Paris.
I walked the labyrinth, the geometrically precise pattern inlaid in the floor of the cathedral.
By tracing the half-kilometre path to the centre and back to the perimeter of the labyrinth, believers experience a contemplative and restorative state. Walking the labyrinth as a hopeful newlywed in the early eighties, I felt a powerful connection with the previous centuries of pilgrims who had paced the same path. To find a labyrinth near you and celebrate World Labyrinth Day on May 4th, please visit The Labyrinth Society.
My second favourite cathedral is Antoni Gaudi’s, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
The building was started in 1882 and the projected year of completion is 2026, a long-term project. The structure is a mash-up of botanical, branching designs, fractals rendered in Gothic and Art Nouveau styles. The distinctive Gaudiesque coloured tiles decorate many surfaces.
Disasters are a test of our resilience and humanity. The shared grief after the fire at Notre Dame de Paris underscores our commonalities in a time when current political cultures are trying to highlight our differences. Notre Dame, the Medieval monument to this humanity is a state asset and will require public and private funds for restoration. To understand more about the relationship between France, the Catholic Church and the maintenance of religious monuments read here.
While it would have been nice to see this scale of concern and generosity with some of our other recent humanitarian disasters, I welcome the extraordinary philanthropy and redistribution of wealth that has been offered to reconstruct this monument.