[LISTEN] Alleluia Ministries backtracks on ‘resurrected miracle’

The church said on Tuesday that the man was alive by the time Lukau laid his hands on him. 

A video, which went viral at the weekend, shows a man identified as Elliot rising out of a coffin and breathing heavily while congregants of the church and the pastor are praying for him.

According to the church's spokesperson Busi Gaca, Elliot was declared dead on Friday. 

The family stopped at the church while on their way to Zimbabwe for the burial.

"Before Pastor Alph (Lukau) was informed, the family already confirmed that there was movement in the coffin, which the family said was noticed immediately when they drove onto the premises of the church.

"By the time Pastor Alph got to the hearse, and the coffin was opened, he saw and mentioned on camera that the man in the coffin was breathing. We could all see that his chest was moving up and down. His mouth wide open and tongue moving as he was gasping for some air. Whether his mouth and eyes were wide open while he was in the coffin or not, we don't know. We only saw him once the coffin was opened," Gaca said.

In the video the pastor is seen asking for the man's name and laying his hands on him while praying.

Elliot then rose from the coffin.

“This was a spiritual instruction from the prophet of God, not an indication of raising up someone from the dead,” said Gaca.  

"Pastor Alph (Lukau), never claimed to have raised him from the dead. He said God has answered the faith of the family and raised their loved one from the dead. We all celebrated the testimony of the family.”

 Questions have also been asked about the pastor’s lavish lifestyle. 

Gaca said the pastor has many businesses and doesn't only earn money from the church, adding that only 15% of Christians give a tithe to the church.

A tithe is a form of offering ten percent from salary to the church on a monthly basis.

"I've got an idea of how my father (Lukau) makes money. I know he runs companies, not one company, not two, not three, not four, I know he runs companies that's one thing. Number two, how much offering do you guys think we give for him to afford so many nice cars and the lavish life you guys talk about? Do you that statistically it’s proven that only 15% of Christians tithe, so if statistically, 85% of Christians don't tithe, how can we say the man of God, and I'm not only talking about pastor Alph, only the men of God are living of the tithe of people?"

Meanwhile, the funeral parlour which transported Elliot’s presumed dead body at the time have distanced themselves from the incident.

The parlours included the Kings and Queens Real Funerals, the Black Phoenix Parlour and the Blue Funeral Services.

Spokesperson of the parlours, Prince Mafu, said none of the three parlours stored Elliot's body. 

"What happened on the day is that people who masqueraded as bereaved families approached Kings and Queens for purposes of hiring a hearse for transportation of a body, which apparently was lying at another funeral mortuary. That mortuary at that stage  had no hearse because it was weekend, we were made to believe that all their hearses have been distributed throughout the country.

"So they came here seeking assistant just for transport purposes so that how probably the car belonging to King and Queens ended up on the video but at all material times we were never privy to that corpse. It was never with us, it was never with any of the three implicated funeral palours in anyway," said Mafu.

People on social media have dubbed the incident as “the resurrection challenge”, portraying their own version of the incident.

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