You’ve achieved what was said to be impossible,” the French president told workers at the Paris monument, which will reopen after the 2019 fire.

Today Notre Dame has been rebuilt. The archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, will ceremonially open its doors for the first time since the fire on December 7th, and hold the first mass the next day. Against the odds,

Macron was welcomed inside by the chief architect of France’s national monuments, shown sacred objects that survived the fire and given explanations of how areas such as the roof and window were remade. The BBC’s Paris Correspondent wrote that it had been a “spectacular experience.”