2019 Holocaust Memorial

Since 1985, St. Mary’s Seminary & University has held a yearly Yom HaShoah service. This year’s Holocaust service focused on justice and accountability, which has been an important theme at St. Mary’s throughout this academic year. Students from both the Ecumenical Institute and the School of Theology—including Mark DeCelles, Marton Lonart, James Holman, Evan Ponton, and Patty Ruppert—planned the event.

The service was patterned around the lighting of the St. Mary’s Yom HaShoah menorah candles. The prayer service included a reading from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, several psalms of lament, prayers, and memoirs shared by seminarian Marton Lonart from an interview with his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. As the service concluded, participants were invited to light their own candles from the menorah as a sign of their commitment to never forgot and to advocate for the vulnerable among us.