Photojournalist Chris Hondros, killed in Libya last week, was remembered Wednesday as someone who hoped to bring change through his images during a tearful service that drew more than 1,000 family members, friends and colleagues to the same Brooklyn church where he was to be married in this summer.
Mourners filled Sacred Hearts St. Stephens Church during the standing-room only service where the 41-year-old Hondros was to marry his fiancé, Christina Piaia, in August.
Piaia, three of Hondros' friends and the priest who was supposed to officiate the couple's wedding remembered the slain photojournalist as a person who incited change by bringing images of those who suffer to the fore.
He was always ready, they said in their eulogies, to lend a helping hand to colleagues and managed to see the good in people, despite covering some of the most gruesome and grisly events.
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," said Piaia, reading one of the lines she had planned to speak to Hondros at their wedding, which was scheduled for August.
The church was adorned with images of happy moments Hondros and Piaia shared, as well as with the photos of various events and places around the world he took and those from the Hondros' family album. 
Rev. Anthony Sansone said Hondros could not sit back and do nothing while people on the other side of the globe, such as those in Libya now, suffered.
"He was a humanist who ran to the streets where people were at war," Sansone said. "[Chris wanted] to tell the stories of those who could not be told by anyone else."
Hondros, Getty Images senior staff photographer, was killed this month along with his colleague, Tim Hetherington, when they were struck by mortar fire in Misrata, Libya, while covering rebels battling Libyan troops. Two other photojournalists, Michael Christopher Brown and Guy Martin, were wounded in the same attack.
One of Hondros’ closest friends, journalist Greg Campbell, had spent time with him in Libya only a week before his death. In a speech at the service Campbell described the times they had worked together in Kosovo, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. What made Libya different, Campbell said, was that Hondros could not stop talking about his fiancé. The two friends discussed the wedding plans, including the best ways to find a good wedding photographer.
In trying to capture Hondros’ essence, Campbell recited Plato’s verses:
"The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper - often only a spark - to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer - have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity."
Around 3 p.m. the hearse with Hondros' remains left Brooklyn for his native Fayetteville, North Carolina. A funeral service will be held there on Friday. Next to his fiancé, Hondros is survived by his mother, Inge Hondros and his younger brother Dean Hondros.
(PHOTOS: Karly Domb Sadof/WNYC)