For many European Christians, Queen Elizabeth was a role model

Elizabeth died on Thursday afternoon at the age of 96. She became queen in 1952, in the days of Churchill, Stalin and Adenauer.

Being the queen, she saw it as a personal calling from God. That was why she did not stop working at 65 but continued until the last day. Even this week, she said farewell to Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday. She gave authority to form a new government "in my name" to Liz Truss.

Many testimonies

She has given many testimonies of her Christian convictions throughout her long life. "Jesus' teachings have been the bedrock of my faith", she said in her last Christmas message to the British Commonwealth last year. "His (Christ's, ed.) birth marked a new beginning. As the carol says: The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight", concluded the Queen.

Many Christian listeners to her yearly Christmas messages heard that her speeches became more personal and also more pious through the years, as the Dutch Reformatorisch Dagblad notices.

For instance, in her 2016 message, she said: "Billions of people now follow Jesus' teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them", Evangelical Focus refers to.

"God sent a Saviour"

When she became 90 in 2016, several Christian organisations published a book titled: The Servant Queen, and the King she serves. This book gives an overview of her life and her deeper motivations. She said she had put her trust in God to do her work rightly in 2002. "I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian Gospel."

On another occasion, she said: "God sent into the world neither a philosopher nor a general... but a Saviour with the power to forgive", she testified. "For me, the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to live my life."

The American evangelist Billy Graham met her quite often to speak about the Bible and the Christian faith. He has said that she was "very interested in the Bible and its message", as Christian Today reports.

At the home where she was raised, it is known that her mother (the so-called Queen Mother) read her from the King James Version of the Bible every evening.

Because of the Queen's bold statements of her faith, the leader of the Evangelical Alliance in the United Kingdom, Gavin Calver, said on Twitter that the Queen was "the greatest evangelist I could think of."

As the English Sovereign, she wore the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England. A few weeks ago, she sent her wishes to the Lambeth Conference, where the Anglican bishops came together. This time is a "time of great need for the love of God – both in word and deed", the Queen wrote. "Throughout my life, the message and teachings of Christ have been my guide, and in them, I find hope. It is my heartfelt prayer that you will continue to be sustained by your faith in times of trial and encouraged by hope at times of despair."