Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral will welcome a new reliquary intended to preserve the precious crown of Christ, a treasure of Christianity. This contemporary piece of furniture, still in pieces, is being assembled in the Ateliers Saint-Jacques and the Fondation de Coubertin located in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse (Yvelines) who plan to deliver it to the cathedral on November 19 2024.
To fully understand what it is about, we have to go back to the night of April 15 to 16, 2019, the date of the Notre-Dame fire. In the cathedral, firefighters fight the fire at the risk of their lives and also try to save the most precious objects. One of them has inestimable value: the crown of thorns which, according to Christian tradition, was placed on the head of Jesus during the Passion, just before his crucifixion. It was in the trunk of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, that she found refuge that night. Currently, the relic is kept in a secret location.
Father Guillaume Normand, vice-rector of the cathedral, recalls that “it was necessary to break the reliquary which was the covering of a secure chest. We then had to find the code to open this chest and recover the crown”, an epic scene told by Jean-Jacques Annaud in the film Notre Dame is burning in 2022. The vice-rector explains that this crown placed on the head of Christ East “a sign of humiliation“and that”son existence is attested to us by the Gospels, that is to say by the stories which tell us about the life of Jesus.
The crown was first kept in Constantinople [Istanbul aujourd’hui] before being purchased at a high price by King Saint Louis in 1239. “It has been in France since the 13th century, he indicates, and no one else claims possession of it. It’s a very singular, unique object.” According to the cleric, “these are the physical, tangible and material elements which remind us that what Jesus experienced is not simply a story in a book that we leaf through (…) these are historical events which took place truly past.”
First kept at the Sainte-Chapelle, an architectural jewel built to accommodate it on the Ile de la Cité, the crown has been kept in Notre-Dame Cathedral since the 19th century. In the metalworks of the Ateliers Saint-Jacques, Father Normand presents what will be his new setting: a reliquary shrine. “A somewhat complicated name, rhe admits, which comes from a Latin word meaning chest. The word relic comes from a word that speaks of remains. It is therefore a chest which preserves what remains of the Passion of Jesus.”
He adds that the reliquary will house the crown “but also a nail which was used for the crucifixion of Jesus and a piece of the wood of the cross”. These last two vestiges will not be visible, unlike the crown which will “enthrone” in majesty at the heart of the shrine. Each of these three relics is protected by a glass reliquary from which it will never be removed for conservation reasons.
The contemporary piece of furniture designed by Sylvain Dubuisson with Tiphaine Maire measures 3.65 meters high by 2.85 meters wide. It is made up of more than a thousand parts. In a block of Carrara marble, the stonecutters from Ateliers Saint-Jacques have chiseled an altar marked with a cross and covered with small LED candles. Above, on a cedar wood structure, a large halo covered with 396 glass blocks will be fixed.
Master glassmaker Olivier Juteau and his partner Catherine Denoyelle attach these small cabochons to a large disc with micro-screws which will be hidden by a brass mesh. “It is entirely manual work carried out with an old 19th century glass press with a fairly simple mold and a cross-shaped punch which penetrates the glass and which leaves its mark when withdrawing.” He assures that “the fact that they are all slightly different generates a vibration that would not have occurred with paving stones of industrial origin.”
In the center of the halo, a stainless steel half-sphere, decorated in a deep blue to match the vault and stained glass windows of Notre-Dame, will house the crown of thorns. This niche, lit with fiber optics to avoid any risk of fire, will host the crown on the occasion of certain celebrations. The designer also imagined openwork wooden panels, inlaid with 360 thorns gilded with fine gold, to set the niche and its large halo, in reference to the martyrdom of Jesus.
Since 1923, the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher have guarded the relics of the Passion when they are presented to the faithful in the cathedral. The most fervent want to touch them, kiss them. To avoid inappropriate gestures, four knights constantly surround them.
On days when the crown will not be visible, the faithful will be able to touch on the back of the reliquary a bronze disc, cast by the Coubertin Foundry, which represents the small crown in its correct size, but in a stylized way.
The artist warmly thanked his companions from the Ateliers Saint-Jacques. In just seven months, they designed and manufactured this complex work of art by marrying ancient skills and modern technologies of computer-aided drafting and design. On November 4, each of the 160 employees of the Ateliers and the Coubertin Foundry was invited to place a thorn on the work, a symbolic gesture marking their participation in the rebirth of Notre-Dame.
The reliquary shrine will not be visible from the entrance to the cathedral. To admire it, you will have to go to the chapel located furthest to the east. A somewhat secret corner for this legendary object of worship that the faithful of Notre-Dame can't wait to see again within its walls.
