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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Assistant President of the Church

Defunct position in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ4808964 ↗
Source-derived summary

Assistant President of the Church (also referred to as Associate President of the Church) was a position in the leadership hierarchy in the early days of the Latter Day Saint church founded by Joseph Smith. The Assistant President was the second-highest authority in the church and was a member of the church's governing First Presidency. As President of the Church, Smith appointed two (possibly three) men to serve in the position of Assistant President. After Smith's death, most Latter Day Saint denominations discontinued the position of Assistant President of the Church.

Oliver Cowdery

On December 5, 1834, Smith ordained Oliver Cowdery to be his "assistant-president". The minutes of this meeting state that Smith said the following words after laying his hands on Cowdery's head: "In the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified for the sins of the world, I lay my hands upon thee and ordain thee an assistant-president to the High and Holy Priesthood, in the Church of the Latter-day Saints."

At the organization of the church in 1830, Cowdery had been designated the "second elder" of the church. After Smith organized the First Presidency in 1832, Cowdery's standing in the church hierarchy had become uncertain. Cowdery's ordination as Assistant President reaffirmed his status as second only to Smith in church authority.

Duties

After Cowdery's ordination, Smith explained the purpose of the position of Assistant President:

The office of Assistant President is to assist in presiding over the whole Church, and to officiate in the absence of the President, according to his rank and appointment .... The office of this priesthood is also to act as spokesman, taking Aaron for an example.

Editorial summary

“Assistant President of the Church” enters the record as defunct position in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Assistant, President and Church can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1834, 1830, 1832—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Assistant, President and Church.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Assistant President of the Church” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Assistant, President and Church provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4808964. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1834, 1830 and 1832.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Assistant President of the Church”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Assistant President of the Church primary sources, Assistant President of the Church archive and Assistant research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Assistant President of the Church”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Assistant President of the Church” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.