Hundreds of people of all faiths gather in Bromsgrove to remember victims of the Paris attacks

The special service was organised by Bromsgrove Muslim Community Trust and the Parish of Bromsgrove with Dodford as a way of showing solidarity with all those affected by terror attacks.

The service included readings from the bible and the Qur'an, hymns and psalms sung by the choir and prayers from members of both the Christian and Muslim communities.

There were candles lit by representatives of the local community during the service and afterwards, each member of the congregation was encouraged to light their own candle and place it by the altar.

The Rev Christine Holzapfel, team rector of Bromsgrove Parish said: "Uppermost in our minds are the terrorist attacks in Paris, but we also come here today with our hearts and minds full of all those, of whatever race, culture and belief, who have suffered and continue to suffer the affects of hatred and violence in our world.

"The hope and light in the dark times is in every single one of us - promoting our shared values for the good of our world and respecting each other as valued members of the human family.

"As we light candles for peace and healing today, let's make a commitment to be and to promote the light in our communities."

Dr Waqar Azmi, OBE, chairman of the Bromsgrove Muslim Community Trust, said: "It is hard to imagine which religion it is that the terrorists and violent extremists follow.

"It is certainly not the religion of Islam which two billion Muslims, nearly 30 per cent of the world's population follow, otherwise we would all be killing.

"Terrorism has no religion and it would be wrong to blame a whole community of religion for terror attacks - the majority of people killed by ISIS are actually Muslims.

"We owe it to all those affected by terrorism to unite and not divide; to not just curse the darkness of the atrocity but illuminate our society by teaching others about the importance of unity and rejecting hatred."