Notre Dame's fire became a turning point. In 2025, French cathedrals and another sacral monuments saw an unprecedented increase in the number of visitors. The data shows not only tourist success, but besides a deeper cultural and spiritual phenomenon.
Zenit Service quotes the data of the French National Monument Centre (CMN). It informed that in 2025 the facilities under his care for the first time in past exceeded the threshold of 12 million visitors. The cathedrals, towers and vaults recorded peculiar growth dynamics, although statistic cover only ticketed spaces, excluding free interiors of churches.
The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after years of reconstruction became an impulse for the full country. Reims, Chartres, and Amiens reported a sharp increase in attendance, already referred to as the "Notre Dame effect". In Amiens, the number of visitors increased by 95 percent to 26,564 people, in Chartres by 74 percent to 24.5 thousand, and the towers of Reims Cathedral attracted 43 percent more visitors – over 16 1000 people.
The historian of sacral architecture Mathieu Lours emphasizes that the fire of Notre Dame made the heritage fragile, which seemed obvious. In his opinion, the cathedral is present seen as "spaces of consolation, identity and common pride", not simply relics of the past.
According to the rector of Notre Dame, Fr. prelate Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, 11 million visitors recorded by the end of November confirm the return of the cathedral to the function of "universal hospitality". He notes that many come out of curiosity, but “he returns after leaving, asks for confession after a fewer decades or remains silent in prayer.”
For Catholics, cathedrals are not museums, but surviving churches whose intent is sacramental and pastoral ministry. The increase in interest in 2025 shows that beauty and transcendence inactive appeal to people, besides in an increasingly secularized society.
Source: KAI / Vatican News EN
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