Desmond Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, in 1931.
After finishing high school, he went on to train as a teacher at Pretoria Bantu Normal College before graduating from the University of South Africa in 1954.
He began studying theology after three years as a high school teacher and was consecrated as a priest in 1960.
The years 1962-1966 were devoted to additional theological study in England, culminating in a Master of Theology degree.
He taught theology in South Africa from 1967 to 1972 before returning to England for three years as the assistant director of a theological institute in London. He was named Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1975.
In Johannesburg, he was the first black person to occupy that job. He was Bishop of Lesotho from 1976 to 1978, and in 1978 he became the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
Tutu holds honorary doctorates from a variety of prestigious universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Desmond Tutu’s corpse to be quamated: What is aquamation?
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late anti-apartheid leader, will be acquainted, a water-based procedure regarded as an environmentally benign alternative to cremation.
Aquamation as the name implies is the disposition of a body using water rather than fire.
This dissolves the bodily tissue, leaving just the bones, which are then cleaned at 120 degrees Celsius, dried, and pulverised into a coarse powder using a cremulator machine.
Once all of these stages have been completed, the ashes can be buried or scattered in line with the deceased’s desires, exactly as in a traditional cremation.
