History of The Office
Edward Partridge became the first man called to the office of bishop in the early Latter Day Saint church on February 4, 1831. The duties of the office were to oversee the temporal affairs and accounts of the church through the implementation of the law of consecration. Partridge was called to preside over the Missouri Church in Joseph Smith's absence and soon thereafter Edward and his family emigrated to the church's growing colony in Jackson County, Missouri, and continued to act as Bishop of the Branch of the Church there. Newel K. Whitney was then called as Bishop to oversee the temporal affairs of the church in Kirtland, Ohio.
When the Latter Day Saints were headquartered in Nauvoo, Illinois, the membership was separated into three "wards" or geographical precincts ("Upper," "Middle" and "Lower") and a bishop was called to oversee the temporal affairs of each ward. Edward Partridge presided over the "Upper Ward," Newel K. Whitney presided over the "Middle Ward" and Vinson Knight presided over the "Lower Ward." (See Jessee et al., Joseph Smith Papers:Journals, Volume 1 1832-1839, pp. 455–60) Through time in Church History the position of Presiding Bishop was created. Edward Partridge is considered the "First Presiding Bishop" of the Church, however neither he nor his contemporaries saw him as a superior to other Bishops of the Church in that time period.
After the 1844 succession crisis, the offices of bishop and presiding bishop developed separately in the various resulting denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Read more about this topic: Bishop (Latter Day Saints)
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history and/or office:
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Notwithstanding the unaccountable apathy with which of late years the Indians have been sometimes abandoned to their enemies, it is not to be doubted that it is the good pleasure and the understanding of all humane persons in the Republic, of the men and the matrons sitting in the thriving independent families all over the land, that they shall be duly cared for; that they shall taste justice and love from all to whom we have delegated the office of dealing with them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)