Mormonism

Organization and Leadership Structure

Thomas S. Monson is Mormonism's current and 16th president. Members consider him a prophet of God. The church is highly centralized and hierarchal. Men in churchwide leadership positions are called “general authorities”; their ecclesiastical authority and responsibility vary by office and assignment. The First Presidency consists of a president (the prophet) and two counselors. The Quorum of Twelve Apostles is subordinate to the First Presidency. The Presiding Bishopric (a presiding bishop and two counselors) oversee the temporal affairs of the church (e.g., property, buildings, and commercial dealings). The Quorums of Seventy (each quorum consists of 70 general authorities, and a new quorum is created when the number expands beyond 70) are subordinate to the Quorum of Twelve.

Local congregations (a branch or ward, depending on the strength of the congregation) numbered more than 28,000 at the end of 2010 and are organized into stakes, regions, and areas. The proselytizing efforts of the church are organized regionally into 340 missions with more than 52,000 missionaries. Latter-day Saints worship on Sundays in meetinghouses. They also worship in temples. A temple is a building dedicated as a house of God and is reserved for ritualized worship and the marriage ceremony. Men and women who are married in a temple are promised an eternal marriage that may continue beyond death. Including temples currently under construction and plans for new construction, temples number over 150. Many temples are located in the United States, but temples are operating in Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa), Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines), Europe, the Pacific, and South America.

The vast majority of general authorities have been citizens of the United States by birth. However, with the expansion of the Quorums of Seventy, [Page 1186]more general authorities have been called from outside the United States (e.g., Belgium, Japan, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and South Africa). Dieter F. Uchtdorf, born in Czechoslovakia and living in Germany for much of his life, was named as second counselor in the First Presidency in 2008.

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