Helvécio Martins
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Helvécio Martins (27 July 1930 – 14 May 2006) was the first Latter-day Saint of African descent to be called as a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Born to descendants of African slaves in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Martins joined the LDS Church in 1972, despite his knowledge that the LDS Church did not then allow members of African descent to hold the priesthood or to receive temple ordinances.
On 9 June 1978, Martins and his family heard of the announcement that the LDS Church was lifting its racial priesthood ban. After Martins received the priesthood and received his temple ordinances, he served as a bishop, a counselor to a stake president, and as a mission president for the Brazil Fortaleza Mission.
In April 1990, Church President Ezra Taft Benson called Martins as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. Martins thus became the first black general authority in LDS Church history.
Having served the standard five-year term as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, Martins was honorably released as a general authority on 30 September 1995. He died in Brazil at age 75.
Shortly before retiring, Martins dictated his life story which was published as The Autobiography of Elder Helvecio Martins.[1]
Martins' son Marcus Martins is currently the chair of the deaprtment of religion at Brigham Young University-Hawaii.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Helvecio Martins and Mark Grover, ''The Autobiography of Elder Helvecio Martins (Aspen Books, 1994, ISBN: 1-56236-218-6).
[edit] References
- "News of the Church: Elder Helvécio Martins of the Seventy", Ensign, May 1990, 106.
