South Africans have been offered one last chance to pay their respects to Archbishop Desmond Tutu ahead of his funeral tomorrow, as his body lay in state for a second day today.
A church band, which included a pre-schooler trumpeter, performed outside the church as the cortège pulled up to bring back the modest pinewood coffin containing one of the titans of South Africa's history.
Tutu's successor, Thabo Makgoba, waved a chalice of burning incense over the coffin before pall bearers - including Anglican vicars - took the coffin from a silver Mercerdes SUV hearse.
They slowly walked up the stairs into the cathedral where Tutu preached for a decade.
Members of Tutu's family hugged and consoled each other in front of the church as the body arrived around 8.10am local time (0610 GMT).
His body has been lying in 'the cheapest available' coffin, according to his foundation, with Tutu having previously requested 'no lavish spending' on his funeral arrangements.
The globally revered anti-apartheid icon died peacefully aged 90 on Sunday and he is set to be cremated. His ashes will be buried at the weekend.
Around 2,000 ordinary South Africans of all races and ages filed past his closed coffin in southern Africa's oldest cathedral on Thursday, according to a church official.
Following a private cremation, Tutu's ashes will be interred inside the cathedral, whose bells have been pealing in his memory for 10 minutes at midday every day since Monday.
Tutu retired as Archbishop after 10 years in 1996 and went on to lead a harrowing journey into South Africa's dark past as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which exposed the horrors of apartheid in terrible detail.
South Africa is marking a week of mourning for Tutu, with the country's multi-coloured flag flying at half-mast nationwide and ceremonies taking place every day until the funeral.
Weakened by advanced age and prostate cancer, Tutu had retired from public life in recent years.
He is survived by his wife Leah and four children, and several grand and great grandchildren.
Earlier this week, South Africa announced that the cathedral where Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu preached in Cape Town would ring its bells for ten minutes every day until his funeral.
St. George's Anglican Cathedral has been honouring the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate with a tribute at midday for the last few days.
'We ask all who hear the bells to pause their busy schedules for a moment in tribute to Archbishop Tutu,' said the current Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba.
South Africans have been laying flowers at the cathedral, in front of Tutu's home in Cape Town's Milnerton area, and in front of his former home in Soweto.
The activist prelate worked against South Africa's apartheid regime that oppressed the country's Black majority.
Following the end of apartheid in 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that documented atrocities and sought to promote national reconciliation.
Tutu also became one of the world's most prominent religious leaders to champion LGBTQ rights.
'He knew in his soul that good would triumph over evil, that justice would prevail over iniquity, and that reconciliation would prevail over revenge and recrimination. He knew that apartheid would end, that democracy would come,' South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said of Tutu, in a nationally broadcast address Sunday night.
'He knew that our people would be free. By the same measure, he was convinced, even to the end of his life, that poverty, hunger and misery can be defeated; that all people can live together in peace, security and comfort,' said Ramaphosa who added that South Africa's flags will be flown at half-staff this week.
Ramaphosa urged all South Africans to 'pay respects to the departed and to celebrate life with the exuberance and the purpose of our beloved Archbishop. May we follow in his footsteps.
'May we too be worthy inheritors of the mantle of service, of selflessness, of courage, and of principled solidarity with the poor and marginalized.'
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