A branch president is a leader of a "branch" congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The calling of branch president is very similar to the calling of bishop, except that instead of presiding over a ward, the branch president presides over a branch. The branch president is directly responsible for the smooth operation of his branch and the well-being of its patrons. The branch president usually has two counselors to assist him in his duties. The branch presidency comprises these three. Like almost all callings in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the branch president is not paid and must support himself and his family.
A branch president must hold the priesthood and be ordained at lest a Priest. Unlike a bishop, a branch president is not required to be married or be high priest but the enforcement of these stipulations will depend largely on whether the branch in question is part of a district or a stake. Branches within stakes that house a pool of priesthood holders will usually necessitate a branch president to be already married and in most cases to be ordained to the office of high priest (if he is not a holder of that office already). In branches where no resident member is a worthy priesthood holder, a full-time missionary may be called to be branch president. This will usually be the case for branches in districts where local priesthood holders may be in short supply.
Branch presidents are given the honorific title "President".
Famous quotes containing the words branch and/or president:
“When I am finishing a picture I hold some God-made object up to it—a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand—as a kind of final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there’s a clash between the two, it is bad art.”
—Marc Chagall (1889–1985)
“We must choose. Be a child of the past with all its crudities and imperfections, its failures and defeats, or a child of the future, the future of symmetry and ultimate success.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)