The Patriarch to the Church was obviously essential in the Restoration of All Things.

Father to Son - all that inspired and holy stuff.

Only now there is no one there. No office, even - is there?

How did God let this one slip away? Somehow he missed assuring the family would have kids to fill this office.

With no Patriarch to the Church - how do patriarchs actually get their calling? By Apostles and others faking it?

Bill Reel/RFM did an analysis of the situation a few years ago IIRC. It was part of the grand take-over of Mormonism by the Apostles, to the point where now they are the only ruling body. The First Presidency are simply apostles who have been promoted, to the point where the Quorum of the Twelve is actually a unified Quorum of Fifteen. The Presiding Bishop is an auxiliary to the Quorum, as are all the YW, YM and RS leaders. Do a search in the podcasts for the relevant information.

Patriarch - Smariarch, Gwahd moves in mysterious ways; It’s NOT IMPORTANT FOR YOUR SALVATION !

Father Eldred G Smith was the last official Patriarch to the Church. He was made emeritus, but lived to be 106 years old.

In his final years Monson invited Smith to participate in the meetings with the Apostles.

Smith was sustained as a Prophet, Seer and Revelator.

As a position in the church, it had its ups and downs.

The position requires it be held only by a family member of Joseph Smith Sr.

Joseph F Smith held that the position waa higher than that of apostle. Joseph F Smith was set apart as Church President by his uncle, John Smith, who was the Patriarch to the church at the time.

When Kimball initiated his coup and released many church leaders, he made sure the office of Patriarch to the Church was left unfilled.

I'm of the opinion, many of the church leadership felt threatened by the position because one person embodied the same authority as the entire first presidency or apostles.

I suspect the church would like to ditch the fortune teller patriarchal blessing stuff.

It's too easy to disprove and they are stuck trying to make excuses for the stupid stuff they tell people.

The whole thing is like the lame horoscope department of the church and I think they know it. The Patriarch was the crazy shaman figure in the church.

The church always gets interesting when it loses a cultural war. It makes extreme changes to survive. The church always reinvents itself.

The thrill is gone.

It represents an alternative power structure to the First Presidency and spiritual revelation so it had to go.

I grew up in the mission field with no stakes nearby. My parents wrote to Eldred G hisself, and made an appointment for me to get my PB from him when my parents went west to SLC to get sealed.

I was 16. He talked a lot to me and my family beforehand about the importance of getting an education. I think he was an engineer by training.

As for why he was the last, I vaguely recall hearing that he or his eldest son was a non-believer. I think it was him, and he was emeritused since they couldn’t really fire or release him, and when he died they simply did away with the office. My guess is the son was a non-believer too. I know several children or grandchildren of GAs that are non-believers.

I do think there were other contributing factors for dumping the office. I agree with dagny that it feels like fortune-telling and the Q15 were getting uneasy. Also, yes, it is a minor but alternate power center in the church, and that made them nervous. But I think the main reason was they didn’t have a candidate that wanted the job. That’s the problem with an extremely constrained candidate pool. The pool can shrink to zero.

      (In researching data for this spontaneous post, I found the following quotation on mormon.com: "When the Nauvoo City Council agreed to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor press in June 1844, controversy engulfed both Joseph and Hyrum.  Together, the brothers placed the city under martial law to protect citizens from the threat of mobs."*  Yes, they did so with a straight face!)

      It's my personal opinion that the post of Church Patriarch was viciously stabbed in the back by the second to the last Patriarch and bled out...  The last Patriarch, Eldred Gee Smith, who signed his checks, Eldred G. Smith, thus saving one stroke of the pen, had two sons, so it wasn't for lack of candidates for the office, which was to be held by the eldest living male direct descendant of Hyrum "my brother is the Prophet!" Smith.

      When the office became vacant in 1932, at the death of his father, J. Gee was 25 years, NOT an RM, single and not a college grad.  So although he was the most qualified via the rules of the office, he was obviously woefully unprepared in terms of prior precedent, so it was entirely with his blessing that the then prophet, Heber J. Grant, left the office vacant.

      J. Gee then went on a three-year mission to SwissCheeserland and then on to the UofU for an engineering degree. He married, started a family, including two boys, and was an all-around good man.

      In the meantime, for reasons not totally clear in the minds of both trained and untrained observers, Heber J. Grant, after the passage of those ten years, appointed Joseph Fielding Smith's cousin, Joseph Fielding Smith, to the vacant position.  At that point, the famous Joseph Fielding Smith was 68 and the infamous Joseph Fielding Smith was 43...

      Wikipedia says the 'definition' of the office was changed when the 43-year-old was appointed: "Smith's official title was "Patriarch to the Church," in place of the previous style of "Patriarch over the Church" or "Presiding Patriarch," a change which was also accompanied by a reduction in the scope of the duties of the office; Smith was not permitted to ordain or formally supervise local stake patriarchs."**

      In 1946, the Patriarch "to" the church, infamous JFielding, was caught with his pants down in the company of a mormon sailor.  Albert J. Smith was now the PS&R of the church, and he wrestled mightily with this situation.  It was also revealed to Albert that the infamous JFielding had two known/proven cases of prior corpuses being delictied, from the 1920s when he was a student at the UofU.

      So infamous JFielding submitted a request to resign due to ill health and it was granted.

      And it was at this point, in 1947, that Eldred Gee Smith got the calling.  He was NOT enamored with the calling:

      "Smith later said of his first days as patriarch:   'There is no way to prepare for it, no instructions, no counsel.   When I was first ordained, I went into my office, closed the door and didn’t come out for two weeks.   Then a young man came to the door asking for a blessing and so I gave it to him.'"

      Eldred was relieved of his calling (not released!) in 1979, after 32 years of service. He lived to be 106 years old, passing away in 2013 in a rollerblading accident along the Fraternity/Sorority section of N. Wolcott Ave., reportedly screaming, "What happened to the Sigma Pi house?!?"***














*https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/hyrum-smith?lang=eng#aside1_p1

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fielding_Smith_(patriarch)

***https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/pe214r/looking_for_info_on_what_happened_to_the_u_of_u/

I remember asking in a class why the church patriarch had been discontinued... tumbleweeds.

Did it make a major difference when they got rid of the position?

My view is that it didn't.  

When they appointed the gay patriarch, in 1942, they changed the name of the office (supra) and limited the scope of his duties.

Personally, I think the only reason they appointed a new (and last one) in 1947 was because they didn't want to end on a sour note.

When you look at it objectively, it's easy to theorize that JoJu made up the office, Patriarch over the Church, so that his bro would have something fancy way to make money, which at a dollar a blessing wasn't all that shabby back then, when one dollar would buy a house and two mules for Sister Sara...

It made absolutely no difference when the office was discontinued, except for adding another parking spot they could charge for.

Joseph Smith Sr was the first patriarch to the church.

Joseph's uncle John Smith also held the position.

Since the recognized descendants of Joseph were active in the reorganizes church and didn't follow Brigham wrst, the patriarchal position was mostly filled with Hyram's offspring.

    I don't care either way, but the church claims Hyrum followed his dad in that calling:

    "After the Saints relocated in Nauvoo, Illinois, Hyrum assumed significant leadership duties.  He succeeded his father, Joseph Smith Sr., as Church patriarch in 1841 and was appointed to the office of Assistant President of the Church, a position that had been vacated by Oliver Cowdery."



https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/hyrum-smith?lang=eng

> Joseph's uncle John Smith also held the position.

Can you provide more information or documentation on this, Heartless? If possible, I'd like to learn more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Presiding_Patriarchs_(LDS_Church)

Thanks to both you and Heartless.