Military Parade and Te Deum

Photo: Laurent Blum / Luxemburger Wort / Wort.lu

Back to our regularly scheduled national day events: While the official ceremony, which took place this morning for the second time only, is still kind of new-ish, both the military parade in the Avenue de la Liberté and the Te Deum seem much more familiar and at least the latter brought out a while bunch of people with the last name de Nassau. 

Photo: Tanja Feller / Tageblatt / Tageblatt.lu

While it was the Grand Duke now in uniform and the Grand Duchess as well as the Hereditary Grand Duke also wearing his uniform and the Hereditary Grand Duchess who represented the Family at the military parade that traditionally also includes representatives of the police as well as aid, emergency and security services, the foursome was joined by the rest of the family for the church service. I'm not quite sure which theme exactly Stéphanie, Claire, Tessy and Alexandra were going for but it somehow looks like there was some advance girl talk going on...

Photos: Tanja Feller / Tageblatt / Tageblatt.lu

As it has been for a while now, the Te Deum was an interreligious one, concelebrated by the archbishop of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Hollerich; the chief rabbi of Luxembourg, Alain Nacache; the imam of the Muslim community, Muhamed Rizvic; and a Protestant priest, Volker Strauß. Like every year, the climax of the thanksgiving service was the "Domine salvum fac magnum ducem nostrum" - "Oh Lord, save our great leader" or something along those lines if my Latin serves me right - played in a different arrangement every year. Other musical pieces traditionally featured were the national anthem, Ons Heemecht, as well as the Sonnerie nationale.

More pictures and a video of the military parade at Wort; of the Te Deum at Tageblatt. (Remember: we will do a post with many, many more links sometime in the near future.)