HUNDREDS MOURN SLAIN PROFESSORS.

Byline: Amanda Covarrubias Associated Press 

With a honey-colored wooden casket adorned with red, yellow and white flowers resting before them, friends and family grieved Tuesday for engineering professor Constantinos Lyrintzis.

The emotional ceremony at St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church gave relatives, fellow churchgoers and students their first chance to formally say goodbye to the professor and two colleagues killed last week in a barrage of gunfire at San Diego State University.

Guests sat shoulder-to-shoulder inside the ornate church painted with religious murals and gold trim. Crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceiling. When the pews became filled, people stood against the back wall.

``Yes, we have a right to be feel our anger, not perpetually but for the time being,'' said John Kariotakis, the priest who officiated at the 1-1/2-hour ceremony.

``We are here to express our grief and our anger.''

Hundreds paid their respects to Lyrintzis, 36, and professors Preston Lowrey III, 44, and Chen Liang, 32, including their three widows. The women's painful sobs filled the incense-tinged air as mourners dabbed the corners of their eyes.

Besides the memories of the slain professors, thoughts of Frederick Martin Davidson couldn't be banished from inside the beautiful church. Davidson pleaded innocent Monday to three charges of murder.

Police say the 36-year-old graduate student hid a gun inside a first-aid cabinet in a classroom and opened fire on the professors. Davidson allegedly shot 23 rounds from a semiautomatic as he was about to defend his master's thesis in mechanical engineering.

``Many of you are angry at all those people that advance the presence of weapons in our lives,'' Kariotakis said. ``There's no need for that, no need for providing people with the means that brought an end to Costas and his life.''

Lyrintzis was remembered as a devoted husband, a loving father and a caring teacher.

``I would be remiss if I did not remind all of you of his most obvious characteristics,'' Kariotakis said. ``His gentle demeanor, his angelic face, his broad smile, his total kindness, his unwillingness to engage in controversy and always to be a peacemaker.''

At the end, mourners filed past a framed picture of a smiling Lyrintzis. The line included students dressed in hiking boots, parish elders in dark clothing and members of the professors' academic family in business clothes.

As they approached the casket, some reached out to touch it, others blessed it with a sign of the cross and others bent down to kiss the glistening wooden surface.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Family members escort Angeliki Lyrintzis, mother ofProfessor Constantinos Lyrintzis, at a memorial service in San Diego on Tuesday.

Associated Press