Helvécio Martins
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Helvécio Martins (27 July 1930 – 14 May 2006) was the first Latter-day Saint of African descent to be called as a General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Born to descendants of African slaves in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Martins joined the LDS Church in 1972, despite his knowledge that the Church did not then allow members of African descent to hold the priesthood or to attend the temple.
On 9 June 1978, Martins and his family heard of the announcement that the Church was lifting its racial priesthood ban. After Martins received the priesthood and received his temple ordinances, he served as a bishop, a counselor to a stake president, and as a mission president.
In April 1990, Church President Ezra Taft Benson called Martins as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. Martins thus became the first black General Authority in Church history, and the first black to be ordained to the office of Seventy since Elijah Abel in 1839.
Having served the standard five-year term as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, Martins was honorably released as a General Authority on 30 September 1995. He died in Brazil at age 75.
[edit] References
- "News of the Church: Elder Helvécio Martins of the Seventy", Ensign, May 1990
