Father Mychal Judge, the Irish-American chaplain to the New York Fire Department killed in the World Trade Centre tragedy, was laid to rest on Saturday after a funeral attended by hundreds of firefighters as well as former president Mr Bill Clinton and his wife, New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
Funerals were also held on Saturday for two high-ranking New York City firefighters, First Deputy Commissioner William Feehan and Chief of Department Peter Ganci.
This weekend's services were likely to be followed by many others for a fire department that may have lost up to 350 people, by far its worst tragedy since the city's first fire engine companies were formed in 1865.
Father Judge, a 68-year-old Brooklyn-born Franciscan who is listed officially as the first to lose his life in the attack, died while giving the last rites to a victim who perished when the twin towers collapsed. When the priest removed his fire helmet to pray, he was struck in the head by debris from the collapsing building, and was killed.
Five rescue workers who found the chaplain after the aerial attacks brought down the 110-storey towers carried him to a nearby church. They placed his body on the altar before rushing back to the disaster area.
"Mychal Judge was always my friend, and now he's also my hero," said the Rev Michael Duffy, who delivered the homily at Father Judge's funeral Mass.
The son of Irish immigrants, Father Judge was also chaplain to the New York Press Club and the Emerald Society, an Irish-American association that has thousands of members in police and fire departments across the country.
He had accompanied his friend Mr Steven McDonald, a New York policeman shot and paralysed in 1986, on a recent peace mission to Northern Ireland.
Saturday's funeral ceremony, during which bagpipers played the American national anthem, was held at Saint Francis of Assisi church in midtown Manhattan, across the road from 31st Street fire station, which lost seven firefighters in the atrocity.
Visiting the firehouse after the service, Mr Clinton said Father Judge's vocation was "a rebuke to the act of hatred" that killed so many Americans. "So all of us who were here this morning feel a special loss," Mr Clinton said.
"We should see his life as an example of what has to prevail. Today was a very solemn and difficult day in New York City, with the three funerals we had for Bill Feehan, for Pete Ganci and for Father Judge," New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at a news conference on Saturday evening.
"Unfortunately, it is an indication of what we are probably going to face in the future."
A memorial service for firefighters is to be held in New York's Saint Patrick's Cathedral this evening.
A further service to commemorate dead rescue workers is due to be held in Central Park next weekend.
Organisers say they are expecting up to a million people to attend.