Retired Bishop of Natal, Michael Nuttall, a long time friend and colleague delivered the sermon and recalled the nickname, ‘The Arch’, which many used when referring to Tutu.

“Our partnership struck a chord perhaps in the hearts and minds of many people: a dynamic black leader and his white deputy in the dying years of apartheid; and hey presto, the heavens did not collapse.

“We were a foretaste, if you like, of what could be in our wayward, divided nation. This was our ‘Arch’ at his very best.”

Bishop Nuttall recalled that Archbishop Tutu chaired the difficult and unique Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995, when members from all sides of “the struggle” could confess and apply for amnesty.

“How could someone who had suffered so much hostility and disdain in his own country settle for such a conviction, such magnanimity?” Bishop Nuttall asked.

“It was because all that he stood for and strove for was undergirded by a spirit of mercy towards everyone.

Archbishop Tutu’s eldest daughter, Naomi said the family had been overwhelmed by tributes to her father.

“Daddy would say the love the world has shown has warmed the cockles of our hearts, and then he would say, ‘I don’t know what a cockle is, but whatever it is has been warmed.’

“And since he was an English teacher and doesn’t know what a cockle is… I definitely don’t know what a cockle is, but our cockles are warm.”

Tutu’s remains will be interred in the cathedral alongside the former British archbishop of Cape Town, Geoffrey Clayton, who ahead of his 1957 death had refused burial in a whites only graveyard.