Church Organizations, 1831–1833
The
organizational structure of the developed
dramatically in 1831 and 1832. New positions were created—apparently to
provide the growing church with a more hierarchical and formal
leadership configuration—and old positions were redefined. Other
nonecclesiastical offices and organizations were added to meet the
temporal needs of the church. The following charts map the development
of the church’s ecclesiastical structures and its business or civic
structures from 1831 to 1833.
Ecclesiastical Organization
A 22–23
September 1832 revelation delineated the existence of two
priesthoods: a greater priesthood that contains to
the mysteries of the kingdom and to the knowledge of God, and a lesser
priesthood holding the keys of the ministering of angels and of the
gospel of repentance and baptism. The revelation also explained how the
different offices in the church are connected to the two priesthoods.
The offices of and , it states, are “appendages”
to the , or to the office of ; the offices of and ,
meanwhile, are appendages to the , or to
the office of . High priests, elders, and priests, the
revelation continued, have an obligation to travel to proclaim the
gospel, while teachers and deacons are responsible for watching over the
church in local congregations. In the
chart below, offices are listed under the priesthood to which they
pertain, and offices designated as “appendages” are labeled as such.
| Greater Priesthood | Lesser Priesthood |
| High priests | Priests |
| Appendages to the Greater Priesthood | Appendages to the Lesser Priesthood |
| Bishops | Teachers |
| Elders | Deacons |
In an 11
November 1831 revelation, provisions were made to designate presidents over
groups of men who held the offices of deacon, teacher, priest, and
elder, and each group of officers was assigned a numerical
capacity. The revelation further directed that a president
be appointed to preside over those holding the office of high priest and
stated that this would also
“preside over the whole church & . . . be like unto Moses.”
Furthermore, this president would serve as “a Seer a revelator a
translator & a prophet having all the gifts of God which he
bestoweth upon the head of the chu[r]ch.”
JS, who was ordained as “first elder” when the church was
organized, was ordained president of the high priesthood on 25 January 1832 in a conference held in
, Ohio. On 8 March 1832, JS called two to “the ministry of the presidency of th[e] high
Pristhood”— and . Gause was excommunicated in December 1832 but was replaced as a
counselor by in January 1833.
, who was designated the second elder in the
church in 1829 and ordained as such in
1830, may have still held some kind of
authority in that position, though it is unclear exactly what this
entailed after the appointment of bishops and high priests.
In 1834, JS ordained Cowdery an “assistant
President of the High and Holy Priesthood.” Cowdery recorded that he had
not previously been ordained to this office because he had been apart
from JS in . He further recorded that he was then
ranked as first assistant, ahead of previously appointed assistant
presidents Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, and explained that
this was because of his 1829
designation.
was appointed as a bishop in the church in
February 1831. After
Partridge moved from to in the summer of 1831, was designated as
a second bishop in December 1831, with
responsibility over Ohio.
According to a November 1831
revelation, bishops were to serve as “Judge[s] in Israel” and
to oversee “temporal things.”
Counselors were appointed to assist both Partridge and Whitney— and were ordained
as Partridge’s “assistants” in June
1831, while and became counselors to Whitney in February 1832.
was designated an
to the church to help Partridge with land purchases and
to operate the church’s in , which he operated out of a he and Whitney owned. Whitney
served as an agent to the church in —also operating a storehouse there out of his own
. But after his appointment as bishop he was apparently
not replaced in that position; he continued to supervise the Kirtland
storehouse.
The elders
were also organized during this period. received an assignment to preside over the
elders in January 1832, though he was
soon called to be a high priest. was
designated president of the elders in September 1832. It is not known, however, whether presidents
over priests, teachers, and deacons were appointed during this period.
The chart that follows shows the ecclesiastical leadership structure as
of the end of January 1833.
| President of the High Priesthood |
| Joseph Smith Jr. |
| Counselors |
| , |
| (Missouri) | |
| Bishop | Counselors |
| Agent | President over Elders |
| Stake | |
| Bishop | Counselors |
United Firm and Literary Firm
In addition
to these church officers, other governing organizations were formed
during the period of this volume. As plans went forward in November 1831 to publish JS’s revelations, six men—JS, , , , , and —were appointed “stewards” over those
revelations, meaning that they would oversee their publication “&
the concerns thereof.” Any profits resulting from such publication were
to be used for the needs of those men and their families; the surplus
was to be placed in the church’s storehouse. In March 1832, a revelation directed JS and others to further organize the
church’s “Literary and Merchantile establishments,” and in April 1832 JS proceeded to do so, creating
what was called the . This firm consisted of nine men,
all of whom had some form of , or responsibility, for
temporal aspects of the church: and , the two ; , the
and operator of the in ; and the six “stewards over the
revelations.” Joining all of these “several Stewartships” into one firm
allowed each of its members “to have equal claims on the properties for
the benefit of managing the concerns” of their stewardship. The United Firm essentially had
three corporate components: the stewards over the revelations, which
became known thereafter as the ; , the
mercantile branch of the firm in ; and , the
mercantile branch in . The United Firm supervised these various components
of the church with the goal of producing an abundance of “tallents” that
they would then “cast into the Lords Storehouse to become the common
property of the whole Churc[h].” The United
Firm and Literary Firm members are listed here in the order in which
they appear in the revelations organizing those respective groups.
| United Firm | Literary Firm |
| Joseph Smith Jr. | |
| Joseph Smith Jr. | |
Other Church Appointees
In addition
to the offices identified above, continued to
serve as the church historian, a position to which he had been appointed
in April 1831.
A June 1831
revelation gave and responsibility for
printing in the church, while a July
1831
revelation designated Phelps as the main “Printer unto the
Church.”
By June 1832, these three
individuals apparently composed , the formal name of the printing establishment in , Jackson County, Missouri. Phelps, Cowdery, and
Whitmer were assigned in a meeting of the “to review the Book of Commandmants &
select for printing such as shall be deemed by them proper, as dictated
by the spirit.” Phelps later recounted, “I was
ordained and appointed to take the lead in printing, as printer to the
church . . . with Oliver Cowdery and John Whitmer as my
assistants.”
| Historian | Printers |
School of the Prophets
A 27–28
December 1832 revelation instructed a conference of to “teach one another” both secular and spiritual
things. Accordingly, on 22–23 January 1833, JS organized what he called a “” in a
two-day conference. The first day was
attended by high priests, , and other church members,
including women. On the second day, JS washed the feet of the high
priests and elders present. According to , this ceremony was the defining event in the
organization of the school. Although this school met only one time in the
period covered by this volume, it continued for several months
thereafter. Its
membership, according to the revelation mandating its organization,
consisted of “the first labourers, in this last kingdom.”
The members are listed here in the order they are listed in the
minutes.
| Members of the School of the Prophets |
| Joseph Smith Jr. |