South African President Cyril Ramaphosa made the keynote address during a service at St. George’s Cathedral. Tutu’s body will be cremated in a private ceremony after Saturday’s return, and then buried behind a sermon in the cathedral.
For decades, Tutu has been one of the primary voices in urging the South African government to end racism, the country’s official policy of racial segregation. Before the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, and Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president after a long prison sentence.
Respected anti-apartheid fighter will be remembered as one of the most important voices of the 20th century. However, his funeral was suppressed: before he died, Tutu asked for a simple service and a cheap coffin, according to his two foundations.
Retired Bishop Reverend Michael Nuttal, Natalie’s one-time Tutu’s viceroy, delivered the keynote address, calling Tutu “a great man among us morally and spiritually.”
His voice was broken between 1989 and 1996, Nuttall said, and Tutu’s accomplice between 1989 and 1996 struck a chord in the hearts and minds of many: a dynamic black leader and his white ally in the dying years of apartheid; And hey Presto, heaven did not fall, we were a foretaste of what might be in our wayward, divided nation, if you will. “
According to the current South African government’s Govt-19 regulations, Tutu’s funeral is limited to 100 people. St. George’s Cathedral has appealed to South Africans to attend services in local communities instead of traveling to Cape Town.
Events were planned across the country to provide South Africans with the opportunity to observe collective mourning, as he was known, while adhering to the social gap.
A week-long memorial service began Monday at St. George’s Cathedral, a church named after its role in the protests against apartheid. St. George held a special place in the heart of the late Archbishop, so he demanded that his remains be buried in a special repository.
Tutu was born on October 7, 1931, in Clerkstorf, Transvaal, South Africa, the son of a teacher and a housemaid. Tutu had plans to become a doctor, had been hospitalized for more than a year with tuberculosis as a child, and qualified for medical school, he said.
But his parents could not pay, so he returned to teaching.
“The government is offering scholarships to people who want to become teachers,” he told the Achiever Academy. “I’m a teacher and I do not regret it.”
However, he was horrified at the state of Black South African schools, and even more horrified when the Bond Education Act was passed in 1953, which racially divided the country’s education system. He resigned in protest. Shortly afterwards, the bishop of Johannesburg agreed to ordain him to the priesthood – believing that Tutu was a black man with a rare university education in the 1950s – and accepted his new profession.
He was appointed in 1960 and spent alternately between London and South Africa in the early 60s and 70s. When he was appointed dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg in 1975, he returned to his home country. As the government became increasingly repressive – detaining black people and establishing stricter laws – Tutu spoke increasingly openly.
CNN’s Larry Madov, Chandler Thornton and Niamey Kennedy contributed to the reporting.
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