Oral Roberts Stable After Heart Problem : Evangelist: The 74-year-old undergoes emergency operation at Hoag Hospital after suffering chest pain during TV broadcast in Tustin. He is expected to be hospitalized for about a week.

Televangelist Oral Roberts, known for his powerful preaching style and emotional fund-raising appeals, was hospitalized in stable condition Wednesday after undergoing an emergency medical procedure to clear an artery.

Roberts, 74, is expected to remain hospitalized at Hoag Hospital for about a week.

“Mr. Roberts successfully underwent a coronary angioplasty and is now in the coronary care unit of Hoag Hospital in stable condition,” Dr. Subbarao Myla, his cardiologist, said in a statement.

Roberts’ son, evangelist Richard Roberts, said in a statement at the hospital that his father began experiencing chest pain after appearing in a national live television show Tuesday night at Trinity Broadcast Network in Tustin. He was hospitalized just after midnight early Wednesday, and tests revealed blockage in an artery, Hoag officials said.

“I caught the first plane this morning to be at my father’s side,” Richard Roberts, 43, said in his statement.

During the medical procedure, a balloon catheter was inserted into the artery and expanded, allowing blood to flow to the heart.

“The procedure was successful, which means that the procedure produced regular blood flow to the heart,” said Carol Heywood, a spokeswoman at Hoag Hospital. “It is a non-surgical, non-invasive procedure--they go through a vein. We perform about 300 per year. It’s a pretty standard procedure.”

Heywood said the standard length of stay after an angioplasty is one week. Roberts also underwent two successful surgeries in 1991 to widen his carotid arteries.

The evangelist from Oklahoma, who has been a national figure for over 40 years, is famous for his televised pleas for money and his emotional, revivalist style of faith-healing that began in a tent in Tulsa. His fund-raising tactics have triggered widespread controversy and criticism.

Ranked the second most famous evangelist in the nation after Billy Graham, Roberts has suffered financial problems in the past several years, and critics say it is due to his extravagance.

In 1987, Roberts claimed that “God will call me home” unless his followers contributed $8 million to fund medical scholarships for students enrolled in Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, a school he founded in 1968.

He had made a similar financial plea in 1980, claiming that he saw a 900-foot-tall image of Jesus towering over a large hospital complex he was building next to his university. After both appeals, he received millions of dollars in donations.

In 1989, he again said he needed $11 million to stop his ministry, hospital and university from going bankrupt. The goal, however, wasn’t met and the hospital was sold and shut down.

Thousands of followers have claimed that Roberts helped cure them of various medical problems. Roberts, an ordained minister for 56 years, has written more than a dozen books on faith-healing that have sold millions of copies. His university has more than 4,000 students.