Pastor to presidents’ evangelist Billy Graham will lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol Building

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Rev. Billy Graham, who died February 21, 2018 at the age of 99 will lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol Building, making the evangelist and presidential advisor only the fourth private citizen to receive the recognition he will then be laid to rest March 2 at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.

‘Pastor to presidents’ and the world said he received his calling on 18th green of local golf club.

He was indisputably the worlds most famed evangelical preacher who also took his Christian message to the most unlikely corners of the world, including the former Soviet Union and North Korea. Known as the “pastor to US presidents”, he was a welcome, indeed obligatory, visitor to the White

House under a dozen incumbents, even knowing to ask to stay in the Queen’s bedroom rather than the Lincoln because it had the superior mattress.

Though a registered Democrat, he often appeared closer to Republican presidents. He urged Eisenhower to run for office, spent the evening before the

Gulf war began with the elder Bush in the White House and described Ronald Reagan as a “peace-loving man”.

Graham also had a friendly relationship with Queen Elizabeth II and was frequently invited by the Royal Family to special events. This relationship was recently reflected in the Netflix TV series “The Crown”.

Graham received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was the only minister, functioning in that capacity, to receive one.

He went truly international, filling the Haringey Arena in London for 12 straight weeks and holding a vast open-air revival in Trafalgar Square, before proceeding triumphantly though Europe. Later, it was onto India and the Far East, New Zealand and Australia. It was back to London on what was now officially labelled a “crusade” preaching to most corners of the world. Sometimes he spoke so fast he became known as the “machine gun evangelist”. For the next 40 years, until ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, began to slow him down, no evangelist could draw crowds like Graham — a million at a single meeting in Seoul, 250,000 to Central Park in New York and large gatherings in Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang. As other televangelists fell from grace through scandals, he remained untouched.

He once said he wanted that reflected in the first line of any obituary; “he was faithful; he had integrity.”

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, has continued his father’s evangelist mission