Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s remains were taken into a historic cathedral where he once battled against white supremacists on Thursday, allowing South Africans to say their final goodbyes to the anti-apartheid icon.
Six Anglican clergymen carried a plain pine casket with a little bunch of carnations on top.
After priests burned incense over Tutu’s coffin before it was hoisted from the hearse, Thabo Makgoba, Tutu’s successor, performed a prayer.
On New Year’s Day, the untiring spiritual and political leader, who died peacefully on Boxing Day at the age of 90, will be cremated and his ashes interred.
Tutu’s ashes will be deposited inside his stonewalled former parish, where he preached for many years and where bells have been ringing in his memory for 10 minutes at midday every day since Monday, following a private cremation.
Only 100 mourners will attend the funeral due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Tutu has also requested that military rites be restricted.
Only the South African flag will be delivered to his wife Leah, with whom he had four children since 1955.
The Nobel Peace Prize recipient had retired from public life in recent years, weakened by late age and prostate disease.
In 1996, he stepped down as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a traumatic voyage into South Africa’s dark past that exposed the horrors of apartheid in graphic detail.
