A South African pastor, Alph Lukau, who claimed to have resurrected a man from the dead has said he regrets the incident.
His viral resurrection stunt led to several lawsuits with some critics challenging him to raise the late South African leader, Nelson Mandela, from the dead.
Lakau, who runs the popular Alleluia Ministries, has now also claimed that the man was already alive when he arrived at his church.
The controversial preacher said this during an interview with Power FMโs Power Drive host, Thabiso Tema, in South Africa on Wednesday.
Explaining how it all happened, he said he was busy with a sermon on Sunday when he was interrupted and told that a person in a coffin had been brought to the church.
ย โBefore entering the premises of the church, the coffin began to shake, meaning the person was alive. I am really sorry for the misrepresentation of facts, the man was not dead and has never been in the mortuary as we earlier said,โ Lukau explained.
When asked by the host why the man had been brought to the church in the first place, Mr Lukau said, โI am not sure if I can make a statement that he was brought to me.
โWe are the house of God and Iโm just a pastor serving in the house of the Lord. But I am sorry that we didnโt tell people the truth in the first place,โ he added.
Lukau noted that the man was brought to the church by his family, who believed that something would happen if he was prayed for.
He added that further questions about why the man was brought to the church would be better answered by the manโs family.
โI think that they brought the person to church because they believed that God had the ability to resurrect the person, but still our brother was alive even before they brought him to church and we really apologise for not telling the truth in the first place,โ he said.
During the interview, Lukau claimed the only time he restored life was to an unborn child whose mother had alleged that she had been told the child had died in the womb.
