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Reverend Hinckley who died from natural causes was considered prophet by church members, and had served as president since March of 1995. -- PHOTO: AP
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CASPER (Wyoming) - MORMON Church President Gordon Hinckley died in Salt Lake City, Utah, late Saturday at the age of 97, a church spokesman said.
The death resulted from natural causes, the spokesman said without specifying.
Reverend Hinckley, considered prophet by church members, had served as president since March of 1995.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), as Mormon officially call themselves, claims a worldwide membership of 13 million people, but fewer than half of them actually live in the United States.
Thirty-six per cent of church members reside in Latin America and 17 per cent outside of the Western Hemisphere. A significant LDS community exists in Canada.
Reverend Hinckley began his church service as a young man in Britain and went on to hold a number of important church positions culminating in being president of the worldwide faith.
As a member of the First Presidency, the highest governing body of the church, he has had a major role in administering both the ecclesiastical and temporal affairs of the Church, whose members are spread over some 160 nations and territories.
He was the first Church President ever to travel to Spain, where in 1996 he broke ground for a temple in Madrid, and to Africa, where he met with thousands of Latter-day Saints in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
He extensively travelled around the world to visit with church members and for a program of building temples worldwide.
He was born June 23, 1910, in Salt Lake City, Utah, a son of Bryant Strigham and Ada Bitner Hinckley.
He was preceded in death by his wife. -- AFP
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