Presiding High Council
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In Mormonism, the Presiding High Council (also called the High Council in Zion or the High Council of Zion is a standing high council which presides over other standing high councils in each stake of Zion.
The Quorum was organized in 1835 and designated as a body of "traveling councilors" with jurisdiction outside areas where the church was formally organized, equal in authority to the First Presidency as well as to the Seventy, the standing Presiding High Council and the High Councils of the various Stakes (Doctrine & Covenants 107:25-27, 36-37). The jurisdiction of the Twelve was limited to areas of the world outside of Zion or its outlying Stakes.
[edit] History of the Presiding High Council
On February 17, 1834, Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, created the church's first high council at church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio. (See LDS D&C 102). This body consisted of Twelve men, under the direction of the First Presidency. This High Council took on the role of chief judicial and legislative body of the church, except in areas where the church was not organized (which was led by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles), and handled such things as excommunication trials and approval of all church spending. When church headquarters moved to Jackson County, Missouri, the newly-formed Missouri high council took on a presiding role as the High Council of Zion, and the Kirtland high council became subordinate. Later, when other high councils were established in newly formed stakes of the Church, the High Council of Zion took on the role of "presiding" over the lesser High Councils. For example, cases tried in the High Councils of outlying stakes were regularly appealed to the Presiding High Council. The president of this high council was the President of the Church, who at all relevant times was Joseph Smith, Jr. (See LDS D&C 102:9).
Most Latter Day Saint historians view the High Council of Zion as distinct from a stake high council, as there is no "stake" at the "center place" of Zion, and Zion, and its branch of the Church (sometimes referred to as The Church of the Firstborn or the Church of Enoch) would preside over other branches of the Church.
Originally, the Presiding High Council, under the direction of the First Presidency, was in a de facto supervisory role over the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which was a travelling high council with jurisdiction only outside of Zion or its stakes. For example, in 1838, when vacancies arose in the Traveling High Council, it was the Presiding High Council at Far West, Missouri that voted on and filled the vacancies. Later, as the Traveling High Council evolved and began to be known as the Quorum of the Twelve apostles, it acquired equal status with the Presiding High Council and both were subordinated to the First Presidency. When the High Council of Zion was dissolved after the Church was expelled from Missouri, the High Council organized at the new church headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois functioned as the Presiding High Council of the church, overseeing appeals from high councils in outlying stakes.
After the 1844 succession crisis, High Councils developed differently in the various denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which believed in the ascendancy of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the Presiding High Council was permanently abolished.
