JOHANNESBURG: South Africans of all races and religions united in an outpouring of prayer and song for their beloved Nelson Mandela on Sunday, hearing calls to keep his dream of a Rainbow Nation alive.

Churches, mosques, temples and synagogues across the country rang out with hymn and homily — a nationwide day of prayer to begin a week of remembrance for the anti-apartheid icon.

From a Methodist Church in Johannesburg, President Jacob Zuma implored this still deeply scarred nation to keep lit Mandela’s flame of freedom and justice.

“He preached and practised reconciliation, to make those who had been fighting forgive one another and become one nation,” Zuma told a mixed race congregation of more than 1,000 worshipers.

“He preached and believed in peace, that we should live in peace, that we should live in unity.” In the congregation Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and his grandson Mandla looked on, often appearing to recede deep into their sadness.

Sunday marked the formal start of a week-long state funeral for the man who forged a new multi-racial South Africa from the discredited remnants of the apartheid era he helped dismantle.

Reflecting a life that transcended race and religion, prayers were said not only in the churches of the Soweto township, but also in those of the Dutch Reformed Church — once an Afrikaner pillar of the apartheid system.

There is some concern that the loss of such a talismanic leader might expose social divisions that Mandela’s huge moral authority had kept in check.

In the Regina Mundi Catholic church in Soweto, parish priest Sebastian Rossouw called Mandela “a light in the darkness” and praised his capacity for “humility and forgiveness.”

Inside the church, once used as a sanctuary by anti-apartheid activists during police raids, a single candle illuminated a portrait of Mandela with a raised-fist salute.

“He fought for us then, now he needs to rest,” said Olga Mbeke, 60, who was born in Soweto.

In Johannesburg, speaking to an exclusively white, Afrikaans congregation at Melville Dutch Reformed Church, Reverend Andre Bartlett asked them to “think back to the 1990s,” when the old order was crumbling and a newly-freed Mandela was preparing his successful run for the presidency.

“Remember the fears we had over what would happen to the country: under the leadership ofMandela, none of those fears came true,” Bartlett said.

The extraordinary depth and breadth of Mandela’s appeal will see heads of state of every political stripe rub shoulders with leaders across the religious spectrum along with marquee names from the worlds of sports, art and entertainment during the funeral events.