Melbourne service for Manchester victims

Melbourne's St Paul's Anglican Cathedral has held a special service to remember the 22 people killed in the Manchester bombing.

Victims of the Manchester bombing have been remembered at an Anglican church service in Melbourne's CBD.

St Paul's Cathedral held a solemn choral evensong with prayers for the people of Manchester on Sunday night in the wake of the May 22 terrorist attack at Manchester Arena.

British Consul General Christopher Holtby and members of the Consular Corps joined in the service, reading prayers to remember those killed in Manchester and for those affected.

Rev Len Firth said Manchester reminded Melburnians of the terror experienced following the Melbourne's Bourke Street rampage in January, and the killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt.

"Manchester, a pop concert attracts a young audience and also, attracts the focus of a group with a much more sinister purpose," he said on Sunday.

"Minya, a bus load of Coptic Christians going to worship in a monastery are attacked and 28 are killed including many children.

"In Melbourne, these events reach out and touch our own community .... remind us of acts of terror which were near at hand, of a car turning around the intersection just out here before mowing down people in Bourke Street. Manchester, Minya, Melbourne."

Rev Firth said at times it can feel that "evil is so forcefully real" but at times like these, Christians should pray.

"As we are revolted by evil and disgusted by its actions it actually reminds us that what we actually desire is exactly the opposite of evil.

"Something much better - we long for goodness, that desire for goodness can become a prayer," he said.