South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu died on Dec. 26 at the age of 90. His passing was announced in a statement by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday. Tutu was one of the world’s most well-known religious leaders, moral authorities and anti-racist advocates.

A religious and political leader of the anti-apartheid struggle and beyond

Born Desmond Mpilo Tutu in 1931, he became an Anglica deacon in 1960 and priest in 1961 before being named the first Black bishop of Johannesburg in 1984 and then archbishop of Cape Town in 1986. He also served as secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches from 1978-1985, using this platform to vocally oppose apartheid; Tutu also co-founded the United Democratic Alliance. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 “for his role as a unifying leader figure in the non-violent campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.”

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Tutu was allies and friends with Nelson Mandela, the famed South African anti-apartheid advocate and eventual Nobel Peace Prize winner. After first meeting as young men in the 1950s, Tutu and Mandela would not see each other face to face for nearly 40 years until Mandela was released from prison in 1990. It was Tutu who accompanied Mandela for his first public speech in 1990 and stood next to him as Mandela was sworn in as the first democratically elected president of South Africa in 1994.

In turn, Mandela appointed Archbishop Tutu to head the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, leading them to exercise an ethic of restorative justice that maintained peace in South Africa and became a model for similar processes around the world. Tutu formally resigned his post as archbishop in 1996 to lead the commission, though he was later named archbishop emeritus of Cape Town. Later in life, Tutu was a founding member and the first Chair of the Elders, a group of prominent world leaders drawn together by Mandela to intervene in some of the most challenging crises facing the world. Under Tutu’s leadership, the Elders promoted dialogue between conflicting sides of conflicts such as those between Israel and Palestine and Sudan and South Sudan.

Source: South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu Dies At Age 90