There were haunting scenes on Friday as Germany held a national memorial service for the victims of the Germanwings plane crash, reports The Telegraph.
The sister of one of the passengers wept as she led prayers in Cologne Cathedral on behalf of the families.
“Dear God, give our injured relatives and friends a new home and take care of them always,” the young woman, identified only as Sarah, prayed through her tears.
More than 1,400 people packed the cathedral, and hundreds more watched on giant video screens outstide.
The service was shown live on national television as a country that has been frozen in shock since the crash finally allowed itself to mourn in a huge outpouring of emotion.
Children from the Joseph-König-Gymnasium high school, which lost 16 pupils and two teachers in the crash, played the theme music from Schindler’s List.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, looked on as Luiza Fatyol, an opera singer, performed Faure’s setting of Pie Jesu in memory of two colleagues killed in the accident.
Even Joachim Gauck, the German president, struggled to hold back his tears as he addressed the congregation.
“You are not alone,” he told some 500 family members of the victims who were among those gathered.
Throughout the service, 150 candles burned on the altar steps – one for each of those on board the flight, including the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz.
The co-pilot is believed to have deliberately crashed the Airbus 320 into the Alps, killing everyone on board.
“We do not know how it looked from inside the mind of the co-pilot, who took his own life and 149 others,” President Gauck said.
“But we do know that his family have lost some one they koved on March 24th, who leaves a void in their lives.”
Lubitz’s parents were invited to take part in the service, but chose not to attend.
The ecumenical service was conducted jointly by Cardinal Rainer Woelki, the Archbishop of Cologne, and Annette Kurschus, the President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia.
Cardinal Woelki called on those present to pray for all the dead, and said it was for God alone to judge Lubitz.
“I have no answer for you on that terrible misfortune from March 24th,” he said in his sermon.
“We believe that these 150 people have not disappeared and gone into nothingness when they disappeared from the world.”
“God himself must be there for me and for that which I have lost,” Ms Kurshus said in her sermon. “God himself must stand up for what has happened and for what he has allowed to happen.”
Simple carved wooden angels were distributed to the congregation, which included representatives of the rescue workers who recovered remains from the crash site in the French Alps.