US evangelist Billy Graham – one of the most influential preachers of the 20th Century – has died aged 99.
Graham became one of the best-known promoters of Christianity, beginning his worldwide mission in large arenas in London in 1954.
He died at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, a spokesman for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said.
In a 60-year career, he is estimated to have preached to hundreds of millions of people.
Graham reached millions of them through TV – the first to use the medium to convey the Christian message on that scale.
Young preacher to worldwide phenomenon
Born in 1918 and raised on his family’s dairy farm in Charlotte, North Carolina, Billy Graham became a committed Christian at the age of 16 after hearing a travelling evangelist.
He was ordained a minister in 1939, aged 21.
Graham’s public profile was raised in the United States when he held a two-month ministry in a giant tent in Los Angeles in 1949.
His global mission, which took him to all corners of the world including North Korea, was marked by a sermon before 12,000 worshippers in 1954 in Haringay Arena, London.
At first ambivalent about the civil rights movement in the US, he went on to become a supporter in the 1950s with racially integrated congregations.
Graham avoided the scandals which dogged some contemporary televangelists through the decades.
But his fiery delivery became more measured with advancing years and controversy surrounding the techniques of mass evangelism.
Graham, a friend of US presidents from Truman to Nixon and Obama, preached his final revival meeting in New York in 2005 at the age of 86.
‘Plus side of history’ – tributes
Reacting in a tweet, President Donald Trump called him a special man.
He wrote: “The GREAT Billy Graham is dead. There was nobody like him! He will be missed by Christians and all religions. A very special man.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, tweeted that he was an example to generations of modern Christians.
Civil rights campaigner Rev Jesse Jackson was among others to pay tribute.
Source: BBC