The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints names Dallin H. Oaks as its next president

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 afternoon, President Dallin H. Oaks was named the new leader of the worldwide faith. Henry B. Eyring and D. Todd Christofferson were both announced as counselors in the First Presidency, which is the highest governing body in the church.

This 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 longest period between the death of a prophet and the reorganization of the First Presidency since the late 1800s.

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 Oaks, 93, 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. She went on to become the head of adult education for the Provo School District and, in 1955, the first female council member in Provo 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.”

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 with President Thomas S. Monson during a visit to the Oval Office.

This story will be updated.