The 855-year-old landmark has been closed to the public since the massive blaze ripped through the medieval cathedral destroying its iconic spire and noticeably altering the Paris skyline.

“This is the first time since the French Revolution that there will be no midnight Mass (at Notre Dame),” cathedral rector Patrick Chauvet told The Associated Press.

He said that to his knowledge, it was only closed for Christmas in the period after 1789 when the anti-Catholic French revolutionaries turned the monument into “a temple of reason.”

Chauvet also revealed that the landmark remains so fragile that there’s a “50 per cent chance” the structure might not be entirely saved because scaffolding installed before this year’s fire is threatening the vaults of the Gothic monument.

“Today we can say that there is maybe a 50 per cent chance that it will be saved. There is also a 50 per cent chance of scaffolding falling onto the three vaults,” he said.

Notre Dame even held Christmas Masses during two world wars as a symbol of hope amid the bloodshed. The faithful are looking to keep that spirit alive outside the historic walls this Christmas.

Chauvet instead led a midnight Christmas Mass on Dec. 24 at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois across from the Louvre Museum.

“We have the opportunity to celebrate the Mass outside the walls, so to speak… but with some indicators that Notre Dame is connected to us,” Chauvet said.

Parishioners at Christmas Eve Mass shared sorrow about the fire, but also a feeling of solidarity.

“We are French, we are going to try to rebuild Notre Dame as it was before because it is a symbol,” Jean-Luc Bodam, a Parisian engineer, told The Associated Press.

A wooden liturgical platform that resembles Notre Dame’s own has been constructed in the Saint-Germain church. The Notre Dame choir will also perform a song to the crowd of faithful.

Since the destruction, donations small and large have poured in to help restore the historic cathedral.

In October, French billionaires Francois-Henri Pinault and his father, Francois Pinault, officially signed over $109 million toward rebuilding the church. Rival French billionaire Bernard Arnault pledged $218 million. Others have donated as little as one euro.

French President Emmanuel Macron set a target of five years – which will be when France is set to host the 2024 Summer Olympics – for the completion of Notre-Dame restoration efforts.

López wed opposition senator Angélica Lozano on Monday evening in a private civil ceremony.

“I promise to honour you and love you for life!” López wrote on Instagram to her new wife, Agence France-Presse reported. “Thanks to life for this wonderful year: I earned my doctorate, won the Mayor’s office and married the love of my life.”

The post included four photos of the couple dressed in white and carrying bouquets of flowers, according to the news outlet.

Bogota voters elected the left-wing López, who billed herself as “incorruptible,” on Oct. 27. She takes office in January. The post is seen as the second most politically powerful in Colombia after the presidency.

The couple’s union has become a rallying cause among supporters promoting LGBT rights in the traditionally conservative, Catholic country – though Colombia has permitted gay marriage since a landmark Constitutional Court ruling in 2016.

Lozano told Colombia’s BLU Radio that the couple has tried to marry previously but their schedules made organizing a wedding complicated.

“We told ourselves, ‘We have to do it now or another four years will pass by,” Lozano said. “Because Claudia’s priority the next four years will be her job.”

Pope Francis on Sunday convened a meeting of bishops to discuss a list of topics — including whether the Catholic Church should ease its policy of celibacy for priests, a 1,000-year-old precedent that is expected to spark a heated debate between adherents of the tradition and proponents who’ve said ordaining married men would help solve the church’s clergy shortage.

The Vatican meeting, known as a synod, was to focus on the church’s activity in South America’s Amazon region, a sparsely populated region where Catholic parishes could go for months without seeing a priest.

Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, a former archbishop of São Paulo, told reporters last Thursday that the priest shortage has meant Catholics in the Amazon frequently have lacked access to the sacraments, a bleak sign for the church’s ministry.

To reverse this trend, the church has considered the ordination of indigenous elders, “even if they have an existing and stable family, in order to ensure availability of the sacraments that accompany and sustain the Christian life,” according to the synod’s official working document which The Wall Street Journal cited.

But, some analysts have doubted whether ordaining married indigenous leaders in the Amazon would solve the priest shortage there. Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the head of the Congregation for Bishops, argued in a book published last week that a clergy’s celibacy was precisely why local communities revered them.

Others have argued that loosening the celibacy rule in remote places such as the Amazon or the Pacific Islands – which the church has considered in the past – would open the door to other controversial issues including homosexuality and women’s ordination.

Still, any decision would require the final approval of the pope who has said he would pray and reflect on the decision further.