Montreal/CMEDIA: The cross on Mount Royal is reportedly celebrating a milestone and is turning 100.
Being first lit up on Christmas Eve 1924, Mount Royal Cross is celebrating a milestone by turning 100 and still continues to attract visitors today.
For those seeing it for the first time, Mount Royal Cross standing 33 metres high, and 10 metres wide, creates a big first impression.
Heritage Montreal’s Dinu Bumbaru was reported saying that the metal structure has been lighting up the night sky for 100 years, and is an iconic fixture of the city landscape.
“It’s part of the picture because it’s a very visible thing,” he said. “But of course over the years its presence has had different meanings.”
After the city was spared from a flood, Montreal co-founder Paul de Chomedy de Maisonneuve erected 1643 a wooden cross.
Although with catholic roots are it was the nationalist group, the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste, that launched a fundraising campaign to build what we see today.
“It’s actually donations that were collected by the school children in Montreal that paid for the cross. and it’s the dominion bridge that built it. so, somehow, it’s connected all sorts of people,” Bumbaru said.
Over the years questioning whether a religious symbol has its place in a secular city, it’s been the site of protests, but park user Christophe Divry said that its significance transcends religion.
“it’s part of the history of Montreal, and, and it’s, you know, strongly linked to the root of what Montreal is, Ville Marie,” he said. “It’s related to the impact that Catholicism had on the extension of Montreal. So having a cross here is actually, a very, very good symbol, of, of all the history in Montreal.
And Bumbaru believes that as long as it’s properly cared for, the cross will continue to be a symbol in the future too,
“It will depend on the steel itself and, the rest of the care that is given to it, it’s like the bridges, you know, and the infrastructure of that nature,” he said.
