St John's Cathedral to remember 1914-18 war, appeal for peace in modern conflicts
Service to recall conflict of 1914-18; appeal for peace in Mideast, Ukraine
St John's Cathedral will use the centenary year of the beginning of the first world war to call for a curb on the violence that is paralysing Gaza, Israel and Ukraine.
The Reverend John Chynchen, chaplain of St John's, will open the vigil today with a "provocative" prayer to use the "light and the dark" of peace and conflict since the 1914-18 world war - which killed more than nine million soldiers - to pray for the latest round of indiscriminate violence and human conflict to end.
Chynchen will say: "We gather in the light of Christ to recall the effects of human violence. Our need for redemption.
"To voice sorrow for our own share in the world's violence.
"And to find the healing in the world in the light which shines most intently in the heart of the darkness."
Chynchen said people would be thinking about the worsening violence and destabilisation in the Middle East affecting Gaza and Israel, where thousands of people, including many children largely in Palestine's Gaza Strip, have died.