"Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory..." Christ enters Jerusalem. This is how the five-year construction period after the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris will end: Archbishop Laurent Ulrich will knock on the cathedral doors with his crosier, triggering the choir to sing Psalm 23, 7-10. Notre-Dame will be restored to worship this Saturday, December 7, with the Palm Sunday ritual. Traditionally used for the reopening of cathedrals, the liturgy is in this case also a way of taking up history where the Church had left off: the flames had engulfed the edifice on April 15, Holy Monday, the day after Palm Sunday 2019.

"Who is this king of glory?" asked Patrick Chauvet, the former parish priest of Notre-Dame who now works at La Madeleine church, smiling mockingly. "We wouldn't want anyone to think it was Macron." For weeks, even months, the protocol for the reopening has been the subject of endless discussions between the diocese and the Elysée, and with the president himself. Would Emmanuel Macron make a speech in the nave? In the square outside? It wasn't until November 13 that the question was settled.

A week earlier, Laurent Ulrich had, against all odds, announced that Macron would be speaking in the cathedral. But now the presidency, in a trademark twist, declared that in the end it would be on the cathedral's forecourt.

A headache

The ceremonies, which will take place over the weekend of December 7 and 8, will be divided into three parts: republican, ecclesiastical and TV, or, as Macron's "memory adviser" Bruno Roger-Petit put it when speaking to the press, "A religious subject, a French project, a universal story." Which, between political titles, liturgical rules, and the tyranny of TV ratings, could prove a headache.

It's not certain if US president-elect Donald Trump is familiar with the Palm Sunday liturgy and "the King of Glory," but he isn't wrong about the symbolism. The man who was in office at the time of the Notre-Dame fire plans to be present for the reopening ceremonies. Indeed, the Elysée's diplomatic unit has pulled out all the stops: Some 50 heads of state are expected to attend, with the reopening of Notre-Dame turning into a diplomatic summit where Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky could use the opportunity to plead his country's cause with Trump.

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