Their kinship sealed by fire, St. John the Divine brings Notre Dame to life in exhibition

NEW YORK (RNS) — The Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan is hosting an exhibition on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, revisiting its 850-year history using augmented reality. Histovery, the French tech startup behind the project, hopes it will attract history nerds and tech enthusiasts alike.

The “Notre Dame de Paris: Augmented Exhibition,” which runs through the end of January, opened as Notre Dame reopened after its five-year restoration, a coincidence of the calendar but one that the Very Rev. Patrick Malloy, dean of St. John’s, called symbolic. He said the two monuments have a kinship as two of the world’s most renowned Gothic cathedrals, both of which were damaged by fires in April 2019.

Though less widely known than Notre Dame’s fire, St. John’s conflagration began in its crypt during Palm Sunday services in 2019, forcing worshippers to evacuate and resume worship on the church’s lawn. The fire at Notre Dame broke out a day later. (The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was investigating possible connections between the two fires, said Malloy.)

And while St. John’s fire did not result in a five-year-long closure, as Notre Dame’s did, the smoke from the crypt fire did cause St. John’s to ship its prodigious pipe organ across the country for rehabilitation. The organ played its first notes since its return last month, the same week Notre Dame reopened. The reverend sees symbolic connections in these odds, noting, “Their five years of rehabilitation and our five years of rehabilitation coincided.”

“Notre Dame and St. John the Divine are both symbols of resilience. Hosting this extraordinary exhibition connects two of the world’s most monumental cathedrals and invites our visitors to rediscover the past in a vibrant, new way,” wrote Malloy in a press release announcing the exhibition’s debut in November.

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