Billy graham home in montreat nc

Original Montreat home of Billy Graham and wife for sale

The original family house of the late evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham was put up for sale in Montreat this week for $599,000.

It’s the first and only property owned by the Graham family that entered the real estate market, according to Florida-based agency Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, which is marketing the house in partnership with Kevin B. Jones, LLC.

A Charlotte native, Graham was one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century. He died at age 99 in February 2018 in Montreat.

Graham and his late wife, Ruth Bell Graham, purchased the house at 198 Mississippi Road in the late 1940s. It’s a four-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage with two levels of living space. Within walking distance of the house is the Montreat Conference Center and Montreat College.

The family lived in the house during the years that Graham made his name as “America’s Pastor.” In 1949, Graham attracted national attention during a series of revival meetings in Los Angeles.

“It is where it all began,” said Ruth Graham, the third child of Graham, in a statement to Premier Sotheby’s. Ruth Graham is the one who put the home up for sale.

The cottage at 198 Mississippi Road in Montreat is home to the family of the Rev. Billy Graham during the years that he became a household name. His daughter Ruth put the home up for sale. Single Point Media

Location, location, location

According to Ruth Graham, her parents selected the house for its location.

Right across the street was her grandparents’ house, and her uncle by marriage still lives there. Montreat is outside of Asheville and about two hours northwest of Charlotte.

Billy and Ruth Graham purchased the Montreat house that is now up for sale in the late 1940s.

Ruth Graham

Ruth Graham was born in the house in 1950 and owned the house before she decided to sell it. Since the summer of 2019, the house has served as a vacation rental on VRBO.

As for why she is selling the house now, the 71-year-old Ruth Graham told Premier Sotheby’s, “I have a gravely ill daughter that needs serious and expensive medical attention. I feel it is always better to be upfront with things like that.”

Ruth Graham, seen here with her famous father, was born and lived in the cottage that is up for sale. Ruth Graham

Home in Charlotte

Another of Graham’s homes resides right in Charlotte.

The evangelist’s childhood home was restored as part of the Billy Graham Library complex near Billy Graham Parkway off of Westmont Drive in South Charlotte. The 40,000-square-foot library showcases collections of photos and historical records documenting Graham’s life.

In over 55 years of ministry, Graham preached his Gospel message to more than 215 million people in over 185 countries, according to the library. He also served as a confidante to a number of presidents.

Last year, the $14 million Billy Graham Archive and Research Center broke ground near the library. It is dedicated for researchers to study historical archives from the late preacher.

This story was originally published July 7, 2021 12:44 PM.

Yiwen Lu

In Memoriam: Billy Graham - Montreat College

By Benjamin Brandenburg

The Rev. Billy Graham, best known as the dynamic evangelist who preached the Gospel to millions over a career that spanned decades, passed away on February 21, 2018, at his home in Montreat, North Carolina. He was 99. While his life and legacy as an evangelist and public figure have been celebrated nationally and internationally, he will also be remembered as a civic leader, college supporter, good neighbor, and loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather by those in the local Montreat community.

“The impact that Billy Graham had on Montreat College and the local Montreat community cannot be overstated,” says Montreat College President Paul J. Maurer. “He and his wife Ruth were tireless advocates for the college, giving of their time, resources, and spiritual guidance over the course of more than 60 years. Even as Billy rose to the level of a national and international figure, he and Ruth maintained deep roots in the local Montreat community as loyal friends, neighbors, and civic leaders.”

During his long life, Billy Graham moved from rising evangelist in the 1940s, to evangelical movement leader in the 1950s, to national political figure in the 1960s, to American celebrity in the 1970s, to global icon in the 1980s and 1990s. Graham’s brand of ecumenical Christian evangelism reached millions through his radio and TV shows, syndicated column, movie company, thirty-three books, and stadium-scale Gospel crusades. Few individuals had as much impact on 20th Century American culture as Billy Graham.

Rev. Billy Graham talks to Montreat students after chapel in the 1950s.

Despite Graham’s ascension to global prominence, the boy raised on a farm outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, never lost his sense of place. In 1943, Graham married his Wheaton (Illinois) College classmate Ruth Bell (1920-2007), whose Presbyterian missionary parents had settled in Montreat—Ruth graduated from Montreat College’s high school program in 1936. After graduating from Wheaton, the Grahams made a home for their growing family on Montreat’s Little Piney Ridge. Their mountaintop home became a peaceful refuge from Graham’s increasingly busy schedule of evangelistic crusades, which emerged as an iconic American religious experience after the sensational success of his 1949 Los Angeles Crusade. While Graham and his team would travel the world over the next half century, he would keep coming home to rest and to pay special spiritual attention to the people of Western North Carolina, both personally and professionally—as seven full-scale crusades in Greensboro, Asheville, and Charlotte attest.

Graham will also be remembered for far more than his crusades. In partnership with his father-in-law Dr. L. Nelson Bell, he worked to create a new, vibrant multi-denominational evangelical movement that rose to prominence in the postwar era. Graham’s leadership helped birth institutions like the National Association of Evangelicals and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, humanitarian organizations like World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse, and the prominent Christian media voice Christianity Today. Graham’s support of Christian higher education proved important for dozens of faith-based colleges and universities.

Specifically, the Grahams were intimately involved with the growth and sustenance of Montreat College. In 1943, Billy and Ruth Graham were married in Montreat College’s Gaither Chapel, which was renamed Graham Chapel in their honor in 2015. The Grahams were common fixtures at convocations, banquets, and building dedications at the college just down the ridge from the Graham home. They raised funds to help build the L. Nelson Bell Library in the early 1970s. Their significant personal and financial support during crucial moments helped Montreat College grow into the fully accredited four-year liberal arts institution that it is today. Ruth served on the college’s Board of Trustees from 1972 to 1981 and was named a trustee emerita in 1981. She was also awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1967. Billy and Ruth’s son Franklin Graham graduated from Montreat College in 1974, and their grandson Will Graham served on the college’s Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2016. In 1991, Montreat College awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters to Billy Graham for “a commitment to preaching the Gospel throughout the world and for a lifetime of dedicated and unselfish service to others. ”

<img src="https://www.montreat.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/diagonal.png" alt=""><p>"My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."Rev. Billy Graham</p><img src="https://www.montreat.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/diagonal.png" alt="">

Throughout his ministry career, Graham’s care for the people surrounding him pushed him into a number of important cultural developments, to which the evangelist proved remarkably adept at adopting for his Gospel aims. At his momentous 1957 crusade in New York City, Graham’s controversial decision to work with Catholics and mainline Protestants opened up a long-dormant conversation into the ways Christians could productively work across denominational divides for the good of the Gospel. On race issues, Graham was more progressive than most of his fellow Southerners, but he remained a moderate throughout the Civil Rights era. He bravely began to desegregate his crusades in the 1950s, and he modeled a way for millions of conservative Americans to move towards an acceptance and embrace of racial equality. One way he did this was through music. While Graham remains closely associated with the deep-barrel baritoned “Just as I Am” of his music leader George Beverly Shea, Graham’s music ministry showed remarkable adaptability. And a multi-racial and multi-generational musical sensibility became increasingly evident at his crusades through regular appearances by artists from a wide array of musical traditions, including Johnny Cash, Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, and DC Talk, as well as Korean, Hungarian, Latino, Hawaiian, and Native American music.

Graham also became a celebrity in the political world. His sermons were famous for their unchanging consistency, but they nearly always began with a preamble that focused on problems of the world. Beginning in the 1950s, Graham developed a special relationship with a long line of American presidents, particularly Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Over the decades, many prominent politicians would brave the curvy and narrow mountain roads to visit their spiritual confidant at his home in Montreat. Barack Obama’s 2010 visit continued a close relationship between the pastor and the office of the president that stretched all the way back to the Truman administration. While Graham often served as a personal pastor and confidant to very human presidents, he eventually began to question those politically complex relationships, especially after he and the rest of the American public were made privy to the dark side of his friend Richard Nixon’s administration through the revelations of the Watergate scandal. In 2011, when asked if he could go back and do anything differently, Graham told Christianity Today, “I would have steered clear of politics.”

Graham’s lifetime witnessed momentous changes, and he was central to many of them, but his most significant impact may have occurred outside of the United States. By the time he retired in 2005, Graham had preached to nearly 215 million people in person in more than 185 countries and territories, and to additional hundreds of millions through electronic broadcasts. Graham first took his modern campaign to Europe in 1954. While large sections of the European press initially dismissed the man they called the “Atomic Gospeler” and the “Coca-Cola Gospeler,” he eventually won over much of the skeptical press as Europeans learned from Graham what it meant to identify as both Christian and modern. In the 1960s and 1970s, Graham’s trips increasingly took him beyond the West, where his crusades would continue to set numerous attendance records. In South Africa, he held that nation’s first large scale integrated event in 1973. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the formerly staunch anti-Communist took his revival campaigns into the Communist Bloc. He was the first Christian, Eastern or Western, to publically preach behind the Iron Curtain after World War II, culminating in giant gatherings in Budapest and Moscow—and later to unprecedented invitations to Beijing and Pyongyang in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As the mature Graham entered his twilight years, he was able to witness the explosive growth of Christianity in the southern hemisphere, a moment in Christian history that has surpassed all others in terms of the number of converts to the Christian faith, and his team was vital to that process. In addition to his own crusades, Graham’s team did the extensive work of training and empowering indigenous leaders to participate in worldwide evangelistic endeavors. In the end, perhaps the greatest heavenly gift that the North Carolina native received was that he was able to participate in the unprecedented growth of a vibrant—and truly global—Christian community. ■

Benjamin Brandenburg is an assistant professor of history at Montreat College.

BILLY GRAHAM - Telegraph

Billy Graham's childhood passed during the Great Depression. He was born on the eve of the end of the war, on November 7, 1918, on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina. He was the eldest of four children of William and Morrow Graham, strict Calvinist Protestants.

In his youth, Billy Graham liked everything to do with baseball, and he dreamed that his passion would lead him to the National Baseball League. He also liked to hang out with peers and drink beer. When his father caught him drunk at the age of 15, he locked him at home and gave him beer until Billy began to vomit. Later, Billy remembered that this "execution" brought up in the future preacher a persistent aversion to alcohol. [WARNING: The RBC Book Desk informs 👉 this fact from the life of Billy Graham is not a reason to do the same!]

His family was sincerely believing, and God helped to cope with everyday difficulties. One of the testimonies of God's power was the recovery of Father Billy Graham after a serious accident , , which resulted in a broken jaw and severely damaged face. Through the prayers of his relatives, Billy's father's condition has improved.

After graduating from high school, Billy Graham moved to Tennessee to attend a conservative Christian school, Bob Jones College. But here he felt the alienation of the Protestant school doctrine, and plus to this he became a fan of the wandering evangelical preacher Mordecai Ham - a very eccentric type, moving around the country in a wagon pulled by a couple of donkeys, and speaking in small tents to ordinary people.

Billy was 15 years old at the time, and he certainly wasn't going to listen to the sermons. But history turned out differently. The high school students wanted to go to evangelism and invited Graham along. The words of the sermon came to life and touched the depths of his heart. Billy came to the realization that hell is real and all people need a Savior, because they are sinners, and self-righteousness and morality do not save. Each service was then valuable to him. Only God's love enlivened and attracted to the Person of the Savior. It wasn't a sign from above, it was a response from the heart.

Influenced by Ham, Graham transferred to Florida Bible Institute. During his studies, Graham was ordained to the priesthood, and then, after receiving a bachelor's degree in theology, he moved to Illinois, where he continued his studies at Wheaton Christian College.

There he met his future wife, Ruth McKew Bell.

They got married two months after they graduated from college. For all the time they had five children - daughters Virginia (1945), Anna Graham Lotz (1948), Ruth (1950), sons Franklin Graham (1952), Ned Graham (1958).

Billy Graham's wife can safely be called the first lady of evangelical Protestantism. Behind the scenes, she has always been the closest friend of her husband throughout his life.

Ruth Graham grew up in a mission in China and spent three years of high school there. Her father, Nelson Bell, headed the Presbyterian Hospital in China, which was founded by the father of writer Pearl Buck. As a teenager, she dreamed of becoming a missionary in some secluded place in Tibet. However, God gave her a more significant role in this life.

It was then that Graham decided to organize "Crusades" (evangelistic campaigns that lasted from 1947 until his retirement in 2005) - that is, to preach the Gospel not in temples, but in tents, like a traveling preacher.

However, Billy Graham had far greater ambitions, and he was not going to be content with half-empty benches. Then he began to make announcements on the radio, emphasizing that some actors from Hollywood would be present during the service - he tried with all his might to attract people of acting specialties to his church, hoping that people themselves would go to him to watch on celebrities.

Graham was far more sympathetic to the civil rights movement than other white pastors of his generation. Early 19In the 1950s, he began to push for joint evangelistic campaigns for whites and blacks.

" Christianity is not a religion for white people only, don't let anyone tell you, "This is for the whites, this is for the blacks!" Christ belongs to all people ," Graham declared at a sermon in South Africa in 1973 .

« Our generation is deeply indebted to this giant of the Christian faith, who paved the way for preaching the gospel with humility, mercy and dignity ,” Gabriel Salguero, President of the National Hispanic Evangelical Coalition, wrote in a statement following Graham's death. He also hosted a weekly program on ABC radio called "The Hour of Decision" - thanks to fluent speech and inexhaustible energy, Billy Graham earned the nickname Machine Gun of God from radio listeners.

Soon, with the money of media mogul William Hearst, he founded the Billy Graham Evangelical Association (BGBG), a Christian corporation that produced copyright programs with Graham's sermons for all American stations. At first, Graham's programs were broadcast by 150 stations, but then their number increased to 1200 across America.

In 1952, the Billy Graham Evangelical Association formed the Baptist Film Commission to promote personal conversion stories through films.

EABG also launched a publishing project - Graham was the first to publish the magazine "Christianity Today", which has been one of the most popular publications of Christian Baptists for over 60 years. In the 60s, the Billy Graham Association went international: international offices were opened in dozens of countries around the world, which began to produce periodicals, records, cassettes, films and books for a Spanish-speaking audience.

Billy Graham was one of the first to appreciate the prospects of television - he became the first preacher in the United States to launch his own television show, thanks to which he himself became a real show business superstar.

Billy Graham's popularity made him enter the cabinets of power at all levels, including the White House. The first president Graham met was Harry Truman. It happened back in 1950, when the leaders of the Youth for Christ movement were invited to a reception at the White House.

The first president to pay personal attention to Graham was Dwight Eisenhower during the events of 1957, when Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus refused to comply with a court order to co-educate black and white students. After the leadership of the city of Little Rock, led by the governor, blocked the way to school for nine black teenagers, US President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the introduction of troops into Little Rock, which broke the resistance of the whites. And before deciding to send troops, Eisenhower decided to talk to one of the preachers. The assistant named him Graham as the most popular youth pastor. The second time Eisenhower invited Graham just before his death - he wanted to confess in the hospital.

After that, Graham became known as the "president's pastor" - he met with almost every US president, except for Donald Trump, instructing them on the right path.

John Kennedy invited Graham to spend a day with him at his Palm Beach mansion 4 days before his inauguration.

Billy Graham and Lyndon Johnson

Lyndon Johnson invited Graham to the family ranch several times, and Richard Nixon even called him his friend. When Watergate broke out, the pastor was relayed the president's words to the secretary: "Don't let Billy Graham come near me, I don't want him to be soiled by Watergate."

Met with the "pastor of the presidents" and Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter personally participated in the 1966 "Crusade" in the states of Georgia and Atlanta. Ronald Reagan was also a "Crusader" - they met Graham back at the time when the future US president was president of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild. Bill Clinton was also an honorary participant in the "Crusade" - this happened in 1989, when Clinton served as governor of Arkansas.

George W. Bush invited Graham to the White House that very night of 1991 when the Gulf War began. There he met Bush Jr., for whom he became a real spiritual mentor, at a time when Bush Jr. stopped drinking.

And the only president who did not invite Graham to the White House, but came to visit him himself, was Barack Obama - in April 2010 he visited the sick pastor at his home in Montreat, North Carolina.

Former US Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter with Billy Graham (pictured second from right)

And the only president who did not invite Graham to the White House, but came to visit him himself, was Barack Obama - in April 2010, he visited the ailing pastor at his home in Montreat, North Carolina.

Billy Graham has initiated numerous training programs such as the "School of Evangelism" usually held on the eve of an evangelistic mission around the world. He was also the mastermind behind the First Lausanne World Evangelism Convention, held on 1974 year. This congress gave new strength to Christians all over the world. With Graham's support, international conferences of evangelists were held in Amsterdam in 1983 and 1986.

Despite the fact that in 1954 Billy Graham proclaimed himself an implacable enemy of the USSR, declaring that "either communism must die, or Christianity, because in fact it is a struggle between Christ and Antichrist", he became the first Baptist preacher who visited the Soviet Union. It happened in May 1982, when Billy Graham received an official invitation from the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Pimen to speak at an international conference of religious figures for the defense of peace.

In response, Graham sent a letter to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, in which he set the condition of his visit: the opportunity to preach the Gospel without any censorship. He promised not to make any harsh statements: " My goal is that my visit to the Soviet Union be mutually beneficial in terms of bringing our peoples and governments closer together. For this reason, neither during my visit to the Soviet Union, nor upon my return to United States I will not make any statements that could embarrass my hosts in the Soviet Union or the Soviet government ". Soviet diplomats agreed, and Graham became the first American who, from the pulpit of the Patriarchal Elokhov Cathedral in Moscow, proclaimed three times in Russian: "Christ is risen!" (his visit just fell on Easter). During a 12-day trip around the cities of the USSR, he visited Leningrad, Moscow, Tallinn and Novosibirsk, where he spoke a total of more than 50 times in Orthodox churches and evangelical churches, at the Leningrad Theological Academy, in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok and at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the missionary work of the Baptists in Russia

And in 1992, Graham's sermon during a divine service in Moscow in the Olimpiysky sports complex was heard by about 155,000 people for three days; the broadcast was carried out through monitors installed on the street for people who could not get into the "Olympic".

In 2002, Billy Graham announced that he had been diagnosed with hydrocephalus. Handing everything over to their sons, Billy and his wife retired to their home in North Carolina. In 2007, his wife died of pneumonia, after which Billy Graham generally refused to leave his house and communicate with the press.

“ Bill had a huge impact on people from all over the political spectrum,” said Jack Graham [just a namesake. Note. CC RBC.]- In my opinion, he always reminds us that much more important than party politics, much more important than today's political differences is that Christ can unite us . Even Trump met with Graham when he was not yet president and owner of the White House. He attended the preacher's birthday party when Graham turned 95 years.

" If I had the opportunity to start all over again, I would try to avoid participating in any political campaigns. The only worthy thing for a preacher is to carry the word of God" , - admitted in one of the interviews after Graham retired.

In 2015, Graham released his latest book, Where Am I: Heaven, Eternity, and Our Life Beyond, in which he lambasted the state of the nation's spiritual health. " Our country is in dire need of a spiritual awakening , he wrote. — There were times when I cried, moving from city to city, because I saw how far people had strayed from God... Now Americans no longer remember God ".

In the same year, he visited Moscow son Franklin Graham, who conveyed to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill the words of his father: " I pray and call on the faithful to pray for Russia. Your vast country protects Christians all over the world ".

" It's just an incredible love story of the Almighty , says Jack Graham. — The story of how the Lord took a lanky North Carolina country boy from virtually nowhere and made him a preacher for many generations . ”

The great preacher died on February 21, 2018 at the age of 99 at his home in Montreat, North Carolina.

" The great Billy Graham died. There was no one like him! Christians of all denominations will miss him. A very special person ,” ex-US President Donald Trump tweeted.

Billy Graham was awarded the title of Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his contribution to civil and religious life (2001), was awarded the gold medal of the US Congress (1996) and others awards.0005 * * *

« There is nothing wrong with people having wealth. The problem starts when wealth starts to possess the people.”

* * *

« Courage is contagious. When a daredevil strikes a pose, the people around become stronger than .”

* * *

"The tops of the hills are given to us for views and inspiration, but the fruits grow in the valleys. "

* * *

" comfort and wealth could never enrich the world the way disasters did."

* * *

« The parishioners of the church are like coal in a fire. If they are all together, the fire continues to burn. And one by one, everything slowly fades away ” .

* * *

"The duty of the Holy Spirit is to rebuke, God is to judge, and mine is to love."

A pastor called the Machine Gun of God. 7 facts about the confessor of presidents

American religious and public figure Billy Graham (William Franklin Graham) died at the age of 100. Life recalls the first television preacher of the 20th century, who turned Christian sermons into a show and became a real world star.

1. Teetotaler involuntarily

Billy Graham grew up during the Great Depression. He was born on the eve of the end of the war, on November 7, 1918, on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina. He was the eldest of four children of William and Morrow Graham, strict Calvinist Protestants.

2. Family Man

After graduating from high school, Billy Graham moved to Tennessee to attend a conservative Christian school, Bob Jones College. But here he felt the alienation of the Protestant school doctrine, especially since he became a fan of the wandering evangelical preacher Mordecai Ham - a very eccentric type, moving around the country in a wagon pulled by a couple of donkeys, and speaking in small tents to ordinary people.

Under the influence of Ham, Graham transferred to the Bible Institute of Florida. During his studies, Graham was ordained to the priesthood, and then, after receiving a bachelor's degree in theology, he moved to Illinois, where he continued his studies at Wheaton Christian College.

There he met his future wife, Ruth McCue Bell, who dreamed of becoming a missionary in the Presbyterian Church in China.

3. Tent Crusader

After graduating from college, Graham pastored a Baptist church in Western Springs, Illinois, for several years. He then joined Youth for Christ, which preached to war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. It was then that Graham decided to organize "Crusades" - that is, to preach the Gospel not in temples, but in tents, like a wandering preacher.

However, Billy Graham had far greater ambitions and was not going to be content with half-empty benches. Then he began to make announcements on the radio, emphasizing that some actors from Hollywood would be present during the service - he tried with all his might to attract people of acting specialties to his church, hoping that people themselves would go to him to watch on celebrities.

4. Nicknamed Machine Gun

In 1950 he was invited to the radio to host the Christian show "Songs in the Night". He also hosted a weekly program on ABC radio called "The Hour of Decision" - thanks to fluent speech and inexhaustible energy, Billy Graham earned the nickname Machine Gun of God from radio listeners.

Soon, with the money of media mogul William Hurst, he founded the Billy Graham Evangelical Association (BGBG), a Christian corporation that produced copyright programs with Graham's sermons for all American stations. At first, Graham's programs were broadcast by 150 stations, but then their number increased to 1200 across America.

In 1952, the Billy Graham Evangelical Association formed the Baptist Film Commission to promote personal conversion stories through films.

EGBG also launched a publishing project - Graham was the first to publish Christianity Today, which has been one of the most popular publications of Christian Baptists for over 60 years. In the 60s, the Billy Graham Association went international: international offices were opened in dozens of countries around the world, which began to produce periodicals, records, cassettes, films and books for a Spanish-speaking audience.

5. Confessor of the Presidents

Billy Graham's popularity made him enter government offices at all levels, including the White House. The first president Graham met was Harry Truman. It happened back in 1950, when the leaders of the Youth for Christ movement were invited to a reception at the White House.

The first president to pay personal attention to Graham was Dwight Eisenhower - this happened during the events of 1957, when Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus refused to comply with a court decision on co-education of black and white students . After the leadership of the city of Little Rock, led by the governor, blocked the way to school for nine black teenagers, US President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the introduction of troops into Little Rock, which broke the resistance of the whites. And before deciding to send troops, Eisenhower decided to talk to one of the preachers. The assistant named him Graham as the most popular youth pastor. The second time Eisenhower invited Graham just before his death - he wanted to confess in the hospital.

After that, Graham became known as the "president's pastor" - he met with almost every US president, except for Donald Trump, instructing them on the right path.

John Kennedy invited Graham to spend a day with him at his Palm Beach mansion 4 days before his inauguration. Lyndon Johnson invited Graham to the family ranch several times, and Richard Nixon even called him his friend. When Watergate broke out, the pastor was relayed the president's words to the secretary: "Don't let Billy Graham come near me, I don't want him to be soiled by Watergate."

Met with "pastor of the presidents" and Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter personally participated in the 1966 "Crusade" in the states of Georgia and Atlanta. Ronald Reagan was also a "Crusader" - they met Graham back at the time when the future US president was president of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild. Bill Clinton was also an honorary participant in the "Crusade" - this happened in 1989, when Clinton served as governor of Arkansas.

George W. Bush invited Graham to the White House on the very night of 1991 when the Gulf War began. There he met Bush Jr., for whom he became a real spiritual mentor, at a time when Bush Jr. stopped drinking.

6. The Baptist who assembled the "Olympiysky" Christ and Antichrist", he became the first Baptist preacher to visit the Soviet Union. It happened in May 1982, when Billy Graham received an official invitation from the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Pimen to speak at an international conference of religious figures for the defense of peace.

World Conference "Religious Leaders for Saving the Sacred Gift of Life from Nuclear Catastrophe". Billy Graham (second from right). Photo © RIA Novosti / Yuri Abramochkin

In response, Graham sent a letter to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, in which he set the condition of his visit: the opportunity to preach the Gospel without any censorship. He promised not to make any harsh statements: "My goal is to that my visit to the Soviet Union be mutually beneficial in terms of bringing our peoples and governments closer.For this reason, neither during my visit to the Soviet Union, nor upon my return to the United States, I will make any statements that could put into the embarrassment of the people who receive me in the Soviet Union or the Soviet government." The Soviet diplomats agreed, and Graham became the first American to proclaim in Russian three times from the pulpit of the Patriarchal Elokhov Cathedral in Moscow: "Christ is Risen!" (his visit just fell on Easter).

Photo © RIA Novosti/Yuri Abramochkin

In 1984, during a 12-day trip to the cities of the USSR, he visited Leningrad, Moscow, Tallinn and Novosibirsk, where he performed a total of more than 50 times in Orthodox churches and evangelical churches, in Leningradskaya Theological Academy, in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok and at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the missionary work of the Baptists in Russia.

And in 1992, Graham's sermon during a divine service in Moscow in the Olimpiysky sports complex was heard by about 155,000 people for three days; the broadcast was carried out through monitors installed on the street for people who could not get into the "Olympic".

7. Hermit

Billy with his son Franklin. Photo © Wikimedia Commons

In 2002, Billy Graham announced that he had hydrocephalus. Handing everything over to their sons, Billy and his wife retired to their home in North Carolina. In 2007, Ruth died of pneumonia and degenerative osteoarthritis, after which Billy Graham generally refused to leave his house and communicate with the press.

In 2015, Graham released his latest book, Where Am I: Heaven, Eternity, and Our Life Beyond, in which he lambasted the state of the nation's spiritual health. "Our country is in dire need of a spiritual awakening," he wrote. "There were times when I cried as I moved from city to city because I saw how far people had strayed from God.
Learn more

Swimming pool ideas for backyard

Easiest crops to grow at home

Outdoor fruit trees

Ideas for rooftop garden

Scandinavian living room inspo

What is the best house plant

Ideas for small bathrooms

Ideas for sloped yard

Kitchen kick panel

Home indoor plants

Designer paint ideas