RLDS LEADER TO STEP DOWN

Wallace B. Smith, president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has announced plans to retire as leader of the 243,000-member sect. The 66-year-old Smith said his resignation would take place this April.

Smith, who has directed the second-largest of the Mormon groups since 1978, has selected his adviser, W. Grant McMurray, to succeed him. McMurray, if approved at the church’s 1996 World Conference, would be the first-ever president of the church not to be a direct descendent of Joseph Smith Jr. The current President Smith is the great-grandson of Joseph. He will be only the second leader in the church’s 135-year history to resign as president. His father, W. Wallace Smith, relinquished the presidency in 1978.

During Smith’s presidency, the church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and the building of a $75 million temple and headquarters complex in Independence, Mo.

Another transition on the horizon for the Reorganized Saints is a possible denominational name change to the “Community of Christ.”

The Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints was established in 1860 in Amboy, Ill., under the leadership of Joseph Smith III, over a decade after Joseph Smith Jr’s death. At the turn of the century, the church established its headquarters in Independence.

—MKG

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