Kobe and Gianna Bryant Reportedly Attended Church Service the Morning of Fatal Crash

Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna Bryant spent their last moments together at church. After attending early morning mass Sunday, the two were killed in a helicopter crash, along with seven others. The Los Angeles Lakers star and his 13-year-old daughter attended a 7 a.m. mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady Queen of the Angels in Newport Beach, California, reports PEOPLE.

Father Steve Sallot previously told ABC7 Bryant was at the church Sunday morning. However, a spokesperson for the church declined to comment to PEOPLE, out of respect for Bryant's family.

"He was here before the 7 a.m. mass and that's our first mass of the day," Sallot said. "He would've obviously been in prayer chapel before that and he was leaving 10 [minutes] after 7."

"A friend texted me today to tell me that a friend of [hers] saw #KobeBryant at #Catholic Mass this morning," a Boston priest tweeted Sunday afternoon. "Mass is the worship of God. Heaven is the worship of God. Go to Mass here so that you can worship God forever in heaven."

"He will be missed... his spirit, his joy, his smile," Rosemary Egkan, a parishoner at the Cathedral of Our Lady Queen of the Angels, told NBC Los Angeles.

Other parishoners shared warm memories of Bryant at the church, where he was seen as more than a basketball player. Julie Hermes told NBC Los Angeles he saw Bryant "showing" his daughters with cupcakes as he buckled them into their car seats one day.

Bryant, was raised Catholic, often spoke of how proud he was of Giana, whom he believed would keep the Bryant basketball legacy going.

"The best thing that happens is when we go out and fans come up to me, and she'll be standing next to me, and they'll be like, 'You gotta have a boy, you and [wife Vanessa] gotta have a boy, somebody else to carry on the tradition, the legacy,'" Bryant told Jimmy Kimmel in 2018. "She's like, 'Oh, I got this. You don't need a boy for that. I got this.' I'm like, 'That's right, yes you do. You got this.'"

Bryant, 41, and Gianna were reportedly on their way to a basketball game at the Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks, California when his helicopter crashed just before 10 a.m. PT. John Altobelli, his wife Keri and daughter Alyssa; Christina Mauser; Sarah Chester and her daughter Payton; and pilot Ara Zobayan were also killed in the crash.

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