Jeffrey R. Holland, who was next in line to lead the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died at 85 on Dec. 27 from complications associated with kidney disease, the church said.
Holland was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the faith's governing body. Long a key figure in the church's educational network, Holland drew national attention in 2021 when he instructed staff and faculty at Brigham Young University ‒ the church's flagship institution of higher learning ‒ to take up their metaphorical "muskets" in defense of "marriage as the union of a man and a woman."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also commonly known as the Mormon Church.
Born in St. George, Utah, in 1940, Holland described growing up in a small-town idyll. “I couldn’t have gotten in trouble in that town if I’d wanted to," the church quoted him as saying. "My mother would have known before I ever got home."
After serving the church as a missionary in England as a teenager, he earned master's and doctorate degrees in American studies at Yale University before embarking on a career with the Church Educational System. He served as president of Brigham Young between 1980 and 1989, overseeing the construction of the school's Jerusalem Center on Mount Scopus. He became a member of the Apostles in 1994.
