WASHINGTON (AP) — In a historic cathedral, President Bush and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor are leading final tributes to William H. Rehnquist, the long-serving chief justice of the United States who charted the court's path toward conservatism.

Services for Rehnquist, who died Saturday night after a yearlong illness from thyroid cancer, are being conducted Wednesday in St. Matthew's Cathedral. The funeral for President Kennedy took place there, and Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass at St. Matthew's in 1979.

The family of Rehnquist, a Lutheran, requested St. Matthew's primarily because of the space the Roman Catholic church provides. Vice President Dick Cheney is among other government officials attending.

The nation's 16th chief justice is being buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where his wife is interred.

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It has been an emotional two days for Rehnquist's family and his friends, especially his former law clerks, many of whom recalled on Tuesday his devotion to duty and their love for his lack of pretense.

"In some ways, he may be looking down at all of this, and be amused by it all; he was a person who liked being anonymous," said Joseph Hoffmann, a former Rehnquist clerk who teaches law at Indiana University.

"There was a profound love for him," said New York attorney Robert Giuffra Jr., another former Rehnquist clerk. "He was a very approachable, decent person."

It has been an emotional time as well for O'Connor, who cried Tuesday as Rehnquist's casket was carried up the marble steps to the court.

John Roberts, the former Rehnquist clerk named to succeed his old boss, was among the pallbearers carrying the flag-draped casket into the Great Hall.

Bush, his head bowed, and first lady Laura Bush spent about a minute standing near the casket and a short time looking at the portrait of Rehnquist on a stand nearby. Justice Antonin Scalia escorted the couple.

Bush initially nominated Roberts, a federal appellate judge, to replace O'Connor, who announced in July that she would step down.

The president said Monday that he would nominate Roberts to be the nation's 17th chief justice instead and that the list of possible nominees for O'Connor's seat was now "wide open."

Bush and Senate Republicans are pushing to confirm Roberts before the new court session that begins Oct. 3. Democrats cautioned against a rush to judgment now that Roberts is a candidate for chief justice and at age 50, could shape the court for decades.

On Tuesday evening at the Supreme Court, a line of hundreds of mourners snaked across the court plaza and several hundred yards down a sidewalk, a mix of tourists and office workers at the end of a long day turning out for the chief justice.

People laid long-stem red roses and other flowers on the steps leading to the Supreme Court plaza.

Flags, including the one above the court, were at half-staff in honor of Rehnquist, a President Nixon appointee who served on the court for 33 years and was elevated to chief justice in 1986 by President Reagan.

Rehnquist's burial is listed as the last event of the day Wednesday on the Web site at Arlington National Cemetery.