Lyons can only hope his prayers are answered. The next morning, he sat silently in a Florida courtroom as prosecutors told a jury that the 57-year-old preacher had led a secret double life: Lyons, so respected that admirers sometimes called him ““the black pope,’’ was also, they claimed, a thief and a con artist. In a withering argument, Assistant State Attorney Bob Lewis laid out the theft and racketeering case against him. Prosecutors described how he allegedly pocketed more than $200,000 in contributions–cash intended to help rebuild burned black churches in the South–and took millions from companies looking to buy the group’s lucrative mailing list. Prosecutors say he used the money to finance a ““lavish’’ lifestyle–including two vacation houses and a Rolls-Royce–for himself and several mistresses, until his enraged wife made national headlines by burning down a $700,000 home he owned with another woman. Lyons could face 30 years in prison if convicted.

Despite the evidence, Lyons insists he’ll be vindicated in the end. It wouldn’t be the first time the preacher wiggled out of a tight spot. Critics thought the scandal would end his career. But Lyons, mustering all of his considerable rhetorical skills, tearfully apologized. He admitted he had made ““mistakes’’–and hadn’t always been faithful to his wife. But he insists he was innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. ““I’ve made some bad judgment calls, obviously,’’ he told NEWSWEEK. But he says he has asked his family and followers to ““please forgive me.’’ Lyons admits he has been weakened, but has enough support that he is running for a second five-year term.

Outsiders were incredulous that Lyons wasn’t forced to go. But convention members say non-Baptists simply don’t understand them, or their leader. ““I know people on the outside think we’ve all been hoodooed,’’ says one Lyons supporter. ““But what they see as slick is a gift with people. He’s magnetic. People gravitate toward him.’’ Lyons’s defense team will argue that the whole scandal is nothing more than a misunderstanding about the way the convention handles its money. His lawyers have also suggested that race played a part in the state’s decision to prosecute him, and that he is a victim of a smear by the media. ““This case is much bigger than Rev. Lyons,’’ says attorney Sundria Lake. ““It’s not only the Rev. Lyons that’s on trial, but the black church is on trial.''

The man many saw as a walking embodiment of the black church was always charismatic–and ambitious. When he was a young boy in hardscrabble Gainesville, Fla., his grandfather, a deacon in the church, taught him how the organization worked. Lyons was impressed by the power that church officials had, and yearned to feel that kind of respect and admiration himself. As a young preacher in the 1960s, Lyons stood out as a mesmerizing speaker–and gifted politician. Smooth and self-confident, he was not shy about his calling. ““I received my absolute confirmation from God himself that I was to be president,’’ Lyons recalled in a magazine interview. He rose through the convention’s ranks, at last winning the top job in a bitter 1994 contest against several rivals.

The position came with big responsibilities, and almost unlimited perks. ““The Baptist pastor is responsible to himself,’’ says Duke University’s C. Eric Lincoln. ““There is nothing closer to a principality or a fiefdom.’’ Like his predecessors, Lyons found that there were virtually no rules for managing the convention’s money. He had power to decide where to put it and what to do with it. Not long into his tenure, prosecutors say, that absolute power started to corrupt. Lyons allegedly began skimming from convention donations. Some of the money allegedly went to buy expensive gifts–a fur coat, a 5.5 carat diamond ring–for various mistresses. One alleged mistress, a former convention official from Milwaukee named Bernice Edwards, is on trial alongside Lyons. Edwards denies any wrongdoing, and both say their relationship was only professional. But it was Lyons’s connection to Edwards that led to his current troubles. In July 1997, Lyons’s wife discovered a deed showing Lyons and Edwards co-owned a $700,000 waterfront house in Florida. Enraged, she set the mansion on fire.

The incident attracted the attention of state investigators, who began probing the preacher’s financial dealings. Prosecutors gathered evidence that Lyons enticed several companies to pay $4 million to buy the group’s mailing list, which he claimed contained the names of all 8.5 million convention members. In fact, prosecutors argue, the mailing list only had 15,000 names on it, and the organization itself may actually have fewer than a million members. At the trial, former Lyons aide Bonita Henderson testified that the preacher enlisted her help to pad out the list with phony names using computerized phone books. Defense attorney Grady Irvin’s response: it’s nearly impossible to accurately estimate the number of church members, since no official records are kept–and that the 8.5 million figure is as good as any.

Lyons’s attorneys insist every one of the prosecutors’ charges has an innocent explanation, if the jurors are willing to open their minds to the admittedly odd way the convention handled its money. Lyons says his followers surely would have punished him already if he’d stolen from them. ““You never have to coach a black Baptist church to put their preacher out,’’ he told NEWSWEEK. ““They know how to do that.’’ But even if Lyons succeeds in this trial, his tribulations are far from over. In the spring, he is set to go on trial again on federal charges of fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and extortion. For Henry Lyons, praying time has only just begun.