(RNS) — The story of the evangelist's life, told in pictures.
Evangelist Billy Graham stands on the roof-top of a skyscraper in New York City with the midtown skyline behind him to symbolize his New York crusade. Religion News Service file photo courtesy of Archives of the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, Illinois.
(RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious practice around the world. This week’s gallery is different. In the wake of the death of evangelist Billy Graham on Wednesday (Feb. 21), here is his life, in pictures.
Evangelist Billy Graham stands on the roof-top of a skyscraper in New York City with the midtown skyline behind him to symbolize his New York crusade in 1957. Photo courtesy of Archives of the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, Ill.
The Graham family in 1962. Seated, left to right: Nelson Edmond “Ned,” Ruth, Billy. Standing, left to right: William “Franklin” III, Virginia Leftwich “Gigi,” Anne Morrow, Ruth Bell. Photo courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
“Many times I have been driven to prayer,” Billy Graham once said. “When I was in Bible school I didn’t know what to do with my life. I used to walk the streets … and pray, sometimes for hours at a time. In His timing, God answered those prayers, and since then prayer has been an essential part of my life.” Photographed in Pittsburgh in 1968. Photo courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Billy Graham, left, and his son Franklin Graham smile during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., on Aug. 26, 2005. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Billy Graham speaks during the closing meeting of the Greater London Crusade at Wembley Stadium on May 22, 1954. RNS file photo
Evangelist Billy Graham fields questions during a 1989 press conference at Drumlins Country Club in Syracuse, N.Y. Graham was in Syracuse for the Billy Graham Crusade at the Carrier Dome on April 24, 1989. Photo by Stephen D. Cannerelli
Evangelist Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II met privately in 1990. Graham presented Pope John Paul II with a quilt from the North Carolina mountains near his home. This capped three days of meetings with Vatican officials. Photo courtesy Billy Graham Foundation
Evangelist Billy Graham opens his five-day crusade in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 23, 1992. Photo by Brent Wojan/The Oregonian
An enlarged likeness of evangelist Billy Graham — shown at the podium addressing 4,000 other evangelists in Amsterdam in 1983 — is projected onto a giant screen. Graham, whose organization sponsored the international conference, asked the audience to consider the event’s key question, “What is Evangelism?” He told the preachers that “while some persons think of evangelism as getting more people to join their church, evangelism in its biblical sense is concerned with individuals and their relationship to God – and also their relationship and responsibility to their fellow man.” Religion News Service file photo
Mitt Romney, Billy Graham and Franklin Graham.
Billy Graham addresses some 1,200 inmates of the state penitentiary in Salem, Ore., during a 1950 religious revival campaign. Religion News Service file photo
Evangelist Billy Graham, in a May 18, 1975 photo, after a quarter century of ministry. Photo courtesy The Oregonian
Billy Graham preaches before a crowd of 40,000 at the Southern Baptist Convention in the Louisiana Superdome on June 14, 1982. Speaking at a public evangelistic rally sponsored by the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference before the Southern Baptist Convention meeting, the evangelist said, “the chances of any of us ever seeing the year 2000 are very remote without God’s intercession.” Photo by Chuck Cook/New Orleans Times Picayune
Billy Graham presents a book to Pope John Paul II during an audience on Jan 12, 1981 at the Vatican. Graham gave the pontiff photo albums of the Philippines and Japan — countries that the pope visited shortly after that. Religion News Service file photo
Billy Graham speaks to business leaders on Sept. 22, 1992 in an appearance sponsored by the Rotary Club in Portland, Ore. Photo by Tim Jewett/The Oregonian
On the eve of a New Jersey crusade, Billy Graham addressed staffers at the Interchurch Center in New York in 1991. He is pictured with the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. Religion News Service file photo.
Billy Graham in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 1965. RNS file photo/Birmingham News
Evangelists Franklin Graham, left, and Billy Graham, right, stop on North Galvez Street in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward in 2006. Religion News Service photo by Ellis Lucia/The Times-Picayune of New Orleans
Billy Graham, in silhouette, during the opening ceremony to the Alabama Crusade at Birmingham’s Legion Field in 1972. Religion News Service file photo
President Richard Nixon and first lady Pat Nixon and Billy Graham walk outside following Sunday worship services, conducted by Graham, and held in the East Room of the White House in 1969. Religion News Service file photo
Billy Graham addresses the crowd at the June 2005 Billy Graham Crusade in Queens, N.Y. Photo by Michael Falco
Billy Graham, left, and Cardinal John O’Connor stand in front of the belfry of the Zagorsk monastery in Russia on June 9, 1988. Both attended the festivities of the Russian Christian millennium. Religion News Service file photo
Billy Graham is flanked by his wife, Ruth, and his 80-year-old mother during his five-day 1972 crusade in Charlotte, N.C., his hometown. Graham referred to some local tie or to some experience he underwent in Charlotte as a youth during each service of the crusade. Religion News Service file photo
Billy Graham holds a New York City press conference at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center to talk about his upcoming crusade in 2005. He says it will be his last in New York City. RNS photo by Michael McWeeney
Ruth Graham shows her husband, evangelist Billy Graham, the house in Huaiyin, China, where she was raised until she turned 17. They visited the site in 1988. Her father, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, was a Presbyterian medical missionary surgeon. Religion News Service file photo
Three reviewing officials of the 128th annual Sunday school parade in Brooklyn, N.Y., mingle with some of the young marchers from Windsor Terrace Methodist Church school. Left to right are, Borough President John Cashmere of Brooklyn; Mayor Robert F. Wagner of New York; and evangelist Billy Graham. More than 100,000 children and their teachers participated in the parade that marked the founding of the Brooklyn Sunday School Union in 1816. They represented 450 Sunday schools in 27 Brooklyn communities. Religion News Service file photo
Billy Graham enters the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center with the aid of a walker before a New York City press conference to talk about his upcoming crusade in Queens, N.Y., in 2005. Photo by Michael McWeeney
President Kennedy joined evangelist Billy Graham, left, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in addressing more than 700 men, including members of the House and Senate Prayer Breakfast groups during the Presidential Prayer Breakfast in 1963. The session marked the opening of the 19th annual convention of International Christian Leadership, an organization that sponsors weekly prayer breakfasts and luncheons in major cities. Photo includes: (left to right) Graham, Kennedy, Sen. Frank Carlson and Dr. Abraham Vereide. Religion News Service file photo
(Honolulu) Evangelist Billy Graham, now convalescing in the Hawaiian Islands, is shown in Honolulu with Mahalia Jackson, famed Gospel singer, following the annual Governor’s Prayer Breakfast. RNS file photo
Tullian Tchividjian is the author of “Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free,” that released in 2012. He also is the former senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the grandson of Billy Graham. Tchividjian is pictured here with Billy Graham.
Billy Graham, left, and President Bill Clinton in the White House. Photo courtesy Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Billy Graham, right, during an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in 1994. RNS photo courtesy of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Billy Graham toured the Moscow Synagogue during his 12-day visit to the Soviet Union on Sept. 15, 1984. RNS file photo
Billy Graham, the tall boy in the back, poses with some classmates at Sharon High School in Charlotte, N.C., in this 1936 shot. RNS file photo
The Graham family (left to right: Gigi, Anne, Bunny (Ruth), Ruth, Billy, Franklin, Ned) at their home in Montreat, N.C., in an undated photo. Religion News Service photo courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Billy Graham meets with Jewish leaders in Budapest, Hungary, on Sept. 4, 1977. Graham’s mission to Hungary was the first to a Soviet-bloc country. Between 12,000 and 15,000 people gathered at Tahai, a community some 30 miles west of Budapest, to hear him preach. This was said to be the largest group of Protestants to meet in Hungary since World War II. RNS file photo
Billy Graham with Johnny and June Cash at the Asheville, N.C. Billy Graham Crusade (date unknown). RNS file photo.
Billy Graham speaks at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., in 1964. Religion News Service file photo
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