Eldred G. Smith, the last patriarch of the church, lived to be 106 and died in 2013. He was given emeritus status by Spender W. Kimball in 1979.
I met a guy (we’ll call him Dave) on my mission who was family friends with him. Dave was your classic deep-doctrine expert, and would get into the craziest tangents on obscure church teachings.
My companion and I had a conversation with Dave about Patriarch Smith (who was already over 100 by this point in time) and I learned some crazy nuggets of information.
Take all of this with a grain of salt. This is my recollection of a 16-year old memory of a conversation about another conversation with an ancient man.
Patriarch Smith was prepared for his role as church patriarch since birth. He apparently received gospel doctrine lessons from Joseph F. Smith in the Salt Lake Temple as a boy (he was born in 1907, and JFS died in 1918).
I asked why the position of Church Patriarch was retired, and according to Eldred, it was because the church had transgressed the role of patriarchy so much in the church that the lord saw fit to take it away.
Craziest bit for me: according to Eldred, wedding night sex is part of the sealing ordinance. The details on this are a bit foggy, but the gist was something like this:
Dave: “I was sitting next to Eldred one day when he turned to me and said ‘did you know sex is a priesthood ordinance?’”
“I said ‘well I’m not going to argue with you.’”
Patriarch Smith went on to say that every priesthood ordinance contains 3(?) parts. I don’t remember the parts, but it went something like “the offer, the promise, the finalization.” According to the Patriarch, the last part of Sealing Ordinance doesn’t actually happen during the temple sealing. That part is actually done later when the marriage is consummated.
Just wondering if anyone else has ever heard anything like this? Like I said, this is my 16 year old recollection of a guy saying what a different (extremely old) guy said, so take it with a grain of salt. But I do want to know if there is anyone out there who’s heard something similar.