Thousands of South Africans will pause to remember the anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Sunday aged 90, every day this week as bells are rung at churches across the country for 10 minutes at noon.
The beloved anti-apartheid hero will lie in state for two days in Cape Town before a funeral on 1 January.
Tributes to Tutu, described as the “moral compass” of his country, have poured in from around the world since his death in a Cape Town care home, as a series of events commemorating his life and achievements begin.
“A universal spirit, Archbishop Tutu was grounded in the struggle for liberation and justice in his own country, but also concerned with injustice everywhere,” former US president Barack Obama said in a statement.
The Nobel laureate’s remains will lie in state for two days before his funeral is held on 1 January at Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral, his former parish. The bells of the cathedral, where his ashes are to be interred, will toll for 10 minutes at noon daily until Friday in his honour. Dozens of memorial services are to be held across South Africa in the coming days and flags will be flown at half-mast.
“Bells will ring at 12 noon each day at the cathedral and at many cathedrals and churches across the land. In Cape Town, the Angelus prayer will be recited,” said Archbishop Thabo Makgoba on Monday.
In a troubled country still divided by deep inequality, polarised politics and the legacy of the repressive, racist apartheid system, the death of one of the leading figures of the freedom struggle has brought a rare moment of unity.
Members of all communities have stopped by St George’s cathedral since the news of Tutu’s death broke, many laying flowers under a portrait of the cleric fixed to a wall of remembrance alongside a South African flag, or signing a book of condolence.
Among them was Miriam Mokwadi, a 67-year-old retired nurse, who said the Nobel laureate “was a hero to us, he fought for us”.
“We are liberated due to him. If it was not for him, probably we would have been lost as a country. He was just good,” said Mokwadi, clutching the hand of her granddaughter.
“His significance supersedes the boundaries of being an Anglican,” said mourner Brent Goliath, who broke down in tears outside the old stone building.
He said he had been an altar boy and had met Tutu several times. “I was very emotional this morning when I heard that he’d passed away. I thank God that he has been there for us,” he said, wiping his eyes as he placed a bouquet of pink flowers under Tutu’s photo.
Daphney Ramakgopa, 58, a local government worker, spoke of the loss the entire country was feeling. “We looked up to him as the adviser to everyone in the country, especially our politicians,” she said.
South Africa’s cricket team wore black armbands in Tutu’s honour on day one of the first Test against India in South Africa. Cape Town’s Table Mountain was lit up in purple in his honour.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called him a man of “extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid”.
Ramaphosa said Tutu’s death was “another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” after the country’s last apartheid-era president FW de Klerk died in November.
“Fighting for freedom from the trenches of South Africa required a courage that cannot be described,” said Graça Machel, the widow of Nelson Mandela.
Though he had largely faded from public life in recent years, Tutu had continued his lifelong fight for causes he believed in, forcefully supporting LGBT rights, equal access to education and the assisted dying movement.
The charismatic cleric, whose infectious laughter and informality masked a steely commitment to his principles, had also been fiercely critical of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party.
Covid regulations currently in force in South Africa would restrict attendance at the funeral to a maximum of 100, church authorities said, explaining that “only a fraction of those who want to be there can be accommodated in the cathedral.”
The service will be an Anglican requiem mass, “as Archbishop emeritus Desmond wanted”, led by Michael Nuttall, the retired bishop of Natal, who was known as “number 2 to Tutu”.
The close relationship between Nuttall and Tutu in the 1980s “modelled how a white leader could work for and closely with a black leader,” Anglican church officials told reporters.
Tutu was born in the small town of Klerksdorp, west of Johannesburg, on 7 October 1931.
His career in the church began after he resigned a sought-after teaching post in protest at South Africa’s discriminatory laws in 1958, a decade after the victory of the National party in elections ushered in the apartheid system. After studying theology in the UK, where he would needlessly ask for directions only to be called “Sir” by white police officers. Tutu rose rapidly up the religious hierarchy.
By the late 1970s, Tutu was one of the leaders of the freedom struggle best known overseas and played a leading role in forcing western leaders to confront the moral cost of cold war calculations that led to tacit support for white-minority rule in South Africa.
In 1984, Tutu’s commitment to non-violent struggle won him the Nobel peace prize and he was appointed archbishop of Cape Town shortly afterwards
When Mandela became president after South Africa’s first free elections in 1994, Tutu coined the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe his homeland and then led the truth and reconciliation commission, which revealed the horrors of apartheid.
But Tutu did not spare his country’s new rulers, challenging Mandela, a close friend, over generous salaries for cabinet ministers and stridently criticising the rule of president Jacob Zuma, which ended in 2018 amid allegations of systematic graft.
Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and repeatedly underwent treatment. His public appearances became rarer. In one of his last this year, he emerged from hospital in a wheelchair to get a Covid-19 vaccine, waving but not offering comment.
The archbishop had been in a weakened state for several months and died peacefully at 7am (0500 GMT) on Sunday, according to several of his relatives.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation called Tutu “an extraordinary human being. A thinker. A leader. A shepherd.”
Story first published on The Guardian