Pastor Dies After Attempting 40-Day Fast in Tribute to Jesus Christ.

Francisco Barajah, founder of the Santa Trindade Evangelical Church in Mozambique has prompted debate on the limits of fasting and religious devotion after his death when he attempted 40-day fast in tribute to Jesus Christ.

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After 25 days without food or water,Pr Barajah aged 39 had lost weight to the point where he could not stand up, died at a hospital in the city of Beira, where he was evacuated in critical condition.

He had been taken to hospital at the insistence of relatives and followers.

Mr Barajah was diagnosed with acute anaemia and failure of his digestive organs.

He was rehydrated with serums and an attempt was made to introduce liquid foods, but it was too late and he died on Wednesday.

The pastor was also a French teacher in the town of Messica in the central province of Manica, bordering Zimbabwe.

Members of the Santa Trindade Church said it was common for the pastor and his followers to fast, but not for that long.

His brother Marques Manuel Barajah said the pastor had fasted, but he challenged the medical diagnosis about his death. "The truth is that my brother suffered from low blood pressure," he said.

It is not the first report of such a deadly attempt to imitate Christ's 40-day fast in the desert as described in the Gospel of Matthew.

 In 2006, a British coroner found that a woman died half-way through a similar fast in London, a Zimbabwean man also died in 2015 after 30 days.