Presiding high council of LDS Church

In Mormonism, a high council is one of several different governing bodies that have existed in the church hierarchy on many Latter Day Saint movement denominations. Most often, the term refers to a stake high council in a local stake, but other high councils include the standing Presiding High Council in Zion, and the "travelling high council", better-known today as the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

When the church split into different sects after the death of its founder, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the term came to be defined differently by each sect.

1834 1st High Council
The First High Council, (AKA: High Council of Zion) was created February 17, 1834 at church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio, by Joseph Smith, the founder of the movement. This body consisted of twelve men and was headed by the First Presidency. The original members of the high council in Kirtland were:


 * 1) Joseph Smith (1771-1840) - father of the Prophet Joseph and first patriarch of the church.
 * 2) John Smith (1781-1854) - uncle to the Prophet Joseph.
 * 3) Joseph Coe
 * 4) John Johnson (1779-1843) - "father Johnson" who shared his home with the Prophet Joseph nearby in Hiram, Ohio.
 * 5) Martin Harris (1783-1875) - one of the Three Witnesses
 * 6) John Sims Carter (1797-1834) - former Baptist preacher and early convert who died of cholera on Zion's Camp (1834).
 * 7) Jared Carter
 * 8) Oliver Cowdery (1806-1850) - one of the Three Witnesses and 2nd Elder of the Church
 * 9) Samuel Harrison Smith (1808-1844) - bother of the prophet Joseph
 * 10) Orson Hyde (1805-1878) - soon to be one of the original apostles and famous for his mission to Palestine
 * 11) Sylvester Smith
 * 12) Luke S. Johnson

This high council took on the role of chief judicial and legislative body of the local church and handled such things as excommunication trials and approval of all church spending. This high council became subordinate to the high council of Zion, which was organized in Jackson County, Missouri. Later, when other high councils were established in newly formed stakes of the church, the high council of Zion (first Kirtland, then Far West, Missouri and finally Nauvoo, Illinois) took on a role of "presiding" over the lesser high councils. (Cases tried in the high councils of outlying stakes were regularly appealed to the high council of Zion.)

In 1835, Smith created an additional "traveling high council" of twelve men to oversee the missionary work of the church. Like many early church leaders including the Three and Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon and, initially all church elders, the members of this traveling high council were known as "apostles." Later, as this council grew in importance, it became known as the Council or Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and other church leaders ceased to be called apostles.

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 members were expelled from Missouri, the high council organized at the new church headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois, where it functioned as the presiding high council of the church, overseeing appeals from high councils in outlying stakes.