Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints names Dallin H. Oaks as new president Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY October 15, 2025 at 6:42 AM 0 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints has named longtime church leader Dallin H. Oaks as its new president.
- - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints names Dallin H. Oaks as new president
Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY October 15, 2025 at 6:42 AM
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has named longtime church leader Dallin H. Oaks as its new president.
Oaks has a formidable legacy to live up to, succeeding influential leader Russell M. Nelson, who died Sept. 27 at the age of 101 after seven years as church president.
"I accept with humility the responsibility that God has placed upon me and commit my whole heart and soul to the service to which I've been called," Oaks said at a live press briefing from the church's conference center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1 / 19President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dies at 101Russell M. Nelson, a heart surgeon and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died on Sept. 27, 2025 at the age of 101. He's shown here as a student at Roosevelt Junior High in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1936.
Oaks served as one of two counselors in Nelson's First Presidency. That body was dissolved upon Nelson's death with Oaks returning to a senior membership position in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the church's second-highest governing body, to help begin the process of choosing the church's next leader.
D. Todd Christofferson, who was selected as Oaks' second counselor, praised the new president's intellect and spiritual depth.
"I am not called to be honored but called to serve, grateful to serve at the side of Dallin H. Oaks," Christofferson said.
Nelson, an accomplished heart surgeon who performed Utah's first open-heart surgery in 1955 and helped develop an artificial heart and lung apparatus, became a full-time church leader in 1984. He rose to its highest rank in 2018 and was known for instituting major policy revisions, including negating the ability of same-sex member couples to be "apostates" and barring their minor children from spiritual rites.
About 2% of American adults identify as Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, according to the Pew Research Center's 2023-24 U.S. Religious Landscape Study. Nearly 70% of those members live in the Western United States, most of them in Utah, where the church's global headquarters was established in Salt Lake City in the mid-19th century.
Dallin H. Oaks, then of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, waves to the crowd at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019. Oaks was named president of the church on Oct. 14, 2025, succeeding influential leader Russell M. Nelson.
Oaks thanked church adherents for their prayers as the selection process was conducted.
"I have felt the effect of those prayers and, with my counselors, we will strive in all respects to press forward this great work," he said. Describing Nelson as "a great prophet of the Lord," he said, "We have much work to do to fulfill the challenges he has given us."
Contributing: Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LDS Church names Dallin H. Oaks as new president
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