Even as Christians worldwide mourn the burning of one of the most stunning and historic locations of Catholic iconography, Muslims on social media and in public gather to celebrate and cheer, taking smiling selfies framed by the disaster and lauding what some claim is the continuation of a Holy Week Islamic campaign in France to burn down houses of Christian worship ahead of Easter Sunday in a declared war of cultural subjugation and symbolic dominance.

The fire caused the collapse of the iconic spire of the Notre Dame cathedral and came within moments of leveling the structure altogether, even as under-equipped fire crews and church faithful scrambled to save artifacts and emblems of the faith from inside the burning building, only barely managing to save remaining tendrils of the Crown of Thorns, believed by some to be the actual version written about in the Holy Gospels as the mocking torture device of twisted thorny vine, created by Roman soldiers and forced down on the head of Jesus Christ during his crucifixion in 33 AD, as “King of the Jews.”

With one of the world’s most beautiful cathedrals engulfed in flames, media elites attempted to run cover for the disaster, ignoring the Easter Week timing of the fire, as well as the desecration and vandalism of twelve other French Catholic churches in less than a week, combined with threats just days ago by a French Muslim woman that Notre Dame would be attacked and would be destroyed.

Last Sunday, marauders set fire to the church of Saint-Sulpice; one of the largest and most important churches in Paris — shortly after the twelve-o’clock Mass.

Police have concluded that the Saint-Sulpice fire was the result of arson and are now looking for possible suspects. The restoration of the church from the damage caused by the fire will reportedly cost several hundred million euros.

In Nimes (department of the Gard), near the border with Spain, the church of Notre-Dame des Enfants was desecrated in a particularly odious way, with vandals painting a cross with human excrement, looting the main altar and the tabernacle, and stealing the consecrated hosts, which were discovered later among piles of garbage.

Ignored also were the social media celebrations by Muslims in France and around the world, ranging from smiley emoticon comments on the social media postings of the disaster and photos of French muslims taking smiling, leering selfies with the Notre Dame inferno framed artfully in the background. Their celebration is clear. Most blatantly ignored were initial eyewitness reports by Notre Dame cathedral staff members, saying that the fire had been intentionally set and was a clear case of arson, conveniently concealed by ongoing renovation work at the Cathedral.

Historians have long held that the Dark Ages began with the burning of the Alexandrian library in 275 AD. While not lauded as the repository of all recorded human knowledge in this era, the Easter Week burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris should be seen as an equally significant symbolic moment in the history of the European Continent, and the incremental conquering of the peaceful west through replacement migration, forced refugee resettlement and the purposeful Islamification of Christian Europe.