POOL - NO ACCESS AUSTRALIA

1. High angle of service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in honour of victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17

2. Dutch Ambassador to Australia, Annemieke Ruigrok, and Malaysian High Commissioner to Australia, Zainal Abidin Ahmad, bowing before altar

3. Wide of Ruigrok walking to pulpit

4. Ruigrok reading from bible

5. Close of members of congregation

6. Ahmad addressing congregation

7. High angle of church service

8. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott walking to podium

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Tony Abbott, Australian Prime Minister: ++INCLUDES CUTAWAY OF AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER JULIE BISHOP++

"When those we love are snatched away, nothing can ease the pain. Somehow we who have not been bereaved must reach out to those who have and show, by our love, that love has not abandoned them. You have not been abandoned and you never will be."

10. Wide of Abbott at pulpit

9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Tony Abbott, Australian Prime Minister:

"There will be a time to judge the guilty, but today we honour the dead and we grieve with the living. We cannot bring them back but we will bring them home as far as we humanly can. We cannot resolve the mystery of needless suffering and death, but we can armour ourselves against despair by responding to evil with good. Unconquerable good."

10. Wide tilt down of church service

11. Governor-General of Australia, Peter Cosgrove, placing flower in wreath

12. Various of Abbott placing flower in wreath

13. High angle of service

14. Various of relatives of victims placing flowers in wreath

15. Congregation standing

16. Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, ending service

17. High angle of service

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott spoke on Thursday at a multi-faith service honouring the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

Thirty-eight Australian citizens and residents were among the 298 people killed in the crash, and Australian flags were flown at half-mast across the country to mark the occasion.

"There will be a time to judge the guilty, but today we honour the dead and we grieve with the living," Abbott said.

He said that hundreds of Australian police and military personnel had been working around the clock to retrieve human remains and belongings from the war zone where the downed passenger plane crashed on July 17.

The multi-faith commemorations were centred on St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne, capital of Victoria state where 16 of the victims lived.

Hours earlier, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte halted the search for remains of victims in Ukraine, saying it was too dangerous to continue with the international recovery mission.