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WASHINGTON 鈥� Hundreds of mourners including all five living current and former U.S. presidents packed into Washington's National Cathedral on Thursday to mourn, Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president who struggled with a bad economy and a hostage crisis.

As the somber ceremony began and a bitterly cold wind blew, Carter's flag-draped coffin was carried up the stone steps of the cathedral by a military honor guard after its trip from the Capitol, where his body had lain in state for two days.

Fellow Democratic President Joe Biden will eulogize the 39th president who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. Republican President-elect Donald Trump was among the luminaries at the funeral, before Carter's body is returned to Georgia, where Carter was raised as a peanut farmer.

Entering the cathedral with his wife, Melania, Trump shook hands with his former vice president, Mike Pence, who he had clashed with after Pence refused to go along with his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Ricky Carioti / via Reuters

Trump, who will return to office on Jan. 20, sat next to former President Barack Obama, with whom he chatted as introductory music played. To Obama's right were Laura and George W. Bush and Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden walked hand in hand and took seats in the first row next to Vice President Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Vice President-elect JD Vance and Biden's son Hunter were also among the mourners. Former vice presidents Al Gore and Pence sat side by side.

Elizabeth Frantz / Reuters

Tens of thousands of Americans over the past two days filed through the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol to pay their respects to Carter, who served from 1977 to 1981, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work.

Some said they admired the former Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher who played a key role in the negotiation of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty as a gentle man, rather than a partisan combatant.

"We've come so far from where Jimmy Carter was as a person and it's kinda sad," said Dorian DeHaan, 67, who traveled some 275 miles (440 km) from Sugar Loaf, New York, to pay her respects. "I hope that this will be a reminder to people of what we need to get back to -- that it's not about the power, it's about the people."

Contributed / White House

As she waited in the public viewing line outside the Capitol, DeHaan said her daughter married into the family of the president's younger sister, Ruth, presenting the opportunity to meet the former president in Plains, Georgia.

"But it's a sad moment," DeHaan said. "It's the end of an era and I think we kind of have lost this real belief in humanity, in our presidency."

Washington National Cathedral has hosted the state funerals of Carter's immediate predecessor, Gerald Ford, and successor, Ronald Reagan.

Carter attended both men's funerals and gave the eulogy for Ford, joking that they shared a love of a New Yorker magazine cartoon that depicted a little boy looking up at his father, saying, "Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a former president."

Jeenah Moon / Reuters

Following the state funeral, Carter's remains will be returned to his native Plains where he lived in his 44 post-White House years and made the base of operations for his diplomatic work and charitable efforts including Habitat for Humanity.

Carter lived longer than any other U.S. president and had been in hospice care for nearly two years before his death. His last public appearance was at wife Rosalynn's funeral in November 2023, where he used a wheelchair and appeared frail.

In August, his grandson Jason Carter said Carter was looking forward to casting a ballot for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election, which she lost to Trump.

Biden, during his long career in the U.S. Senate, was the first member of that chamber to endorse Carter for president.

Sarah Jolie, 59, had traveled from her home outside of Chicago to pay her respects. She carried a picture of the youth award she received in junior high from the Carter administration for 鈥渙utstanding achievement in environmental protection services.鈥�

"He just was a hero to me," Jolie said. "He espoused things for generations that nobody else was."