Armistice Day: City remembers war heroes

As the world observed the Armistice Day on Sunday, St Mark's Cathedral, one of the city's oldest British-built churches, paid tributes to untold lives that were lost in war.

November 11 marked the 100th anniversary of the Armistice Day, or the Remembrance Day. On this day truce was signed between the Germans and French Marshal, Ferdinand Foch to mark the end of World War I. On the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 am in 1918, the forces observed a two-minute silence on the Western Front to end all wars.

As the church teemed with officers from the army, navy and air force, the Presbyter in-charge, Rev Vincent Vinodh Kumar, vested in a Red Anglican Cape (a sign of martyrdom), officiated the service.

Quoting a passage from the Bible, Rev Kumar said: "Blessed are the Peace-makers" upon which he underlined that how Peace-making should be an inevitable part of human lives and resounded that wars would not bring peace.

Air Vice Marshal, J H Mandody, read the exhortation. Dominic McAllister, British Deputy High Commissioner, Francois Gautier (Consulate General of France), and the special guest of the day ADGP Bhaskar Rao, IPS of KSRP, the successor regiment of the Mysore Lancers and others paid homage by laying wreaths at the pyramidical cenotaph.

The service concluded with Commander A K George reading an evocative epitaph of the Kohima war memorial which goes: "When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today".