SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a new First Presidency.
During a live broadcast from Temple Square on Tuesday, President Dallin H. Oaks was named the new leader of the worldwide faith. President Henry B. Eyring, 92, and President D. Todd Christofferson, 80, were both announced as counselors in the First Presidency, which is the highest governing body in the church.
President Jeffrey R. Holland, 84, was announced as the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
“I accept with humility the responsibility that God has placed upon me and commit my whole heart and soul to the service to which I’ve been called,” President Oaks, 93, said in brief remarks after the announcement. “I testify that the Lord speaks to the apostles of his church and through the apostles of his church according to the organization that has been revealed to us in these latter days.”
This is the fourth time President Eyring has occupied a seat in the First Presidency. During the broadcast on Tuesday, he professed his love and support for President Oaks.
“I know that he is the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by inspiration,” President Eyring said. “I have seen the power of God come upon him and it’s been a reassuring thing to me to know that just as in the days of old when Peter and others would lead the church, that the people would be able to recognize that that was the Lord’s servant to lead his church.”
This is the first time President Christofferson has served in the First Presidency. An attorney, he was first called as an apostle in 2008.
“I confess that this is not what I expected when I woke up this morning, but I am deeply honored by this calling and trust that it carries,” President Christofferson said. “At the same time, I recognize that I’m not called to be honored but called to serve, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve at the side of President Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring.”
President Holland also expressed support for President Oaks as he takes over leadership of the church.
“We love him. We have known him,” President Holland said. “We’ve watched him be prepared and have had the confirmation that that is the Lord’s will this day, and that has been a unanimous and a very, very moving experience to see that mantle come fully and completely on President Oaks.”
The announcement comes more than two weeks after the death of President Russell M. Nelson, who led the church since 2018. President Nelson died at his Salt Lake City home on Sept. 27 at age 101.
Since President Nelson’s death, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has been leading the church. This is the most extended period between the death of a prophet and the reorganization of the First Presidency since the late 1800s.
President Oaks praised the late president as a “magnificent prophet of the Lord” and added that “there is much to be done” for Christ’s ministry on Earth.
“We pray for all. We seek to serve all and we invoke the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ upon all who seek to serve him, to do so in worthiness and commitment and optimism,” he said. “We do not have the answers to all of the world’s problems. They’ve not been revealed. But what we do know is that we are all children of heavenly parents and that we are called to serve all of the children of God in this wonderful, restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
The announcement of the new First Presidency was broadcast on the church’s website and social media channels. Unlike past announcements, no news conference was held.
President Dallin H. Oaks smiles during general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Oct. 5. He was named the 18th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 93 on Tuesday. (Photo: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
President Oaks recently served as the first counselor in the First Presidency, alongside President Nelson, since Jan. 14, 2018. As the senior-most apostle, he was next in line to be president of the church.
President Oaks was born in Provo on Aug. 12, 1932, and is the father of six children. June Dixon Oaks, his first wife and mother to his children, died in 1998. In 2000, he married Kristen M. McMain in the Salt Lake Temple. He has 29 grandchildren and more than 60 great-grandchildren.
President Oaks is a firm believer in education, something passed on to him from his mother, who earned a graduate degree from Columbia University in New York, and went on to become the head of adult education for the Provo School District and, in 1955, the first female council member in Provo city history.
President Oaks graduated from BYU in 1954 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1957. He practiced law and taught law in Chicago for several years before becoming president of BYU from 1971 to 1980, during which the J. Reuben Clark Law School was founded.
In 1980, President Oaks became a justice of the Utah Supreme Court until he resigned in 1984 to accept his calling as an apostle. President Oaks was just 51 at the time and the youngest member of the quorum since 1970 when Elder Boyd K. Packer was called at age 45.
“I’ve enjoyed my work in the legal profession. It’s been a delight. I have never anticipated that I would do anything outside it,” Elder Oaks told the church-produced Ensign magazine at the time of his appointment. “But just as service in the church is never sought, it is not turned down. … Many years ago, Thomas Jefferson coined the metaphor, ‘The wall between church and state.’ I have heard the summons from the other side of the wall. I’m busy making the transition from one side of the wall to the other.”
President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaks during Brigham Young University’s commencement ceremony, held at the Marriott Center in Provo on April 24. (Photo: Isaac Hale, Deseret News)
According to the church, President Oaks has been an officer or member of the board of many business, educational, and charitable organizations. He has also authored or co-authored books and articles on religious and legal subjects. In 2013, he was awarded the Canterbury Medal for “courage in the defense of religious liberty” by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Because of his legal experience, President Oaks has been a staunch supporter of religious freedom and has often spoken passionately about the U.S. Constitution and contemporary legal cases.
In his tenure as an apostle, President Oaks has met with a variety of government leaders in the United States and abroad on behalf of the church. He hosted former President Gerald Ford during his tenure as BYU president, and on June 20, 2009, presented a set of family historical data to then-President Barack Obama, along with President Thomas S. Monson, during a visit to the Oval Office.
Contributing: Cassidy Wixom
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.