SALT LAKE CITY — Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has been in the hospital since last week, according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was admitted to the hospital last week following several days of illness,” church spokesman Eric Hawkins said. “He has been tested and does not have COVID-19. Other diagnostic studies are being done.”

No further information about his condition was available.

Elder Holland, who is 79, was the president of Brigham Young University from 1980 until 1989, when he was called as a general authority of the church. He served in that capacity until he was ordained an apostle on June 23, 1994.

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Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: ‘A Perfect Brightness of Hope’

A native of St. George, he earned bachelor and master’s degrees at BYU and master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale. Before taking over as BYU president, he was the dean of the university’s College of Religious Education and the church commissioner of education.

Elder Holland recently made news for the way he ministered to missionaries during the coronavirus pandemic.

He also played a role in the church’s nascent relationship with the NAACP when he launched a project to repaint and make other improvements on the NAACP’s historic offices in Jacksonville, Mississippi.

Elder Holland’s most recent general conference address to the church was titled, “A Perfect Brightness of Hope.” He said that if he and his wife, Patricia, had been alive at the time of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in 1820, they would have been looking for the doctrine of temples and eternal marriage that Latter-day Saints believe was part of the resulting restoration of Jesus Christ’s church.

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“I would have looked anywhere and everywhere to find someone authorized to say to me and my beloved Patricia that our marriage in such a setting was sealed for time and all eternity, never to hear or have imposed on us the haunting curse ‘until death do you part.’”

As an apostle for nearly 26 years, Elder Holland has traveled around the world to represented the church and minister to its members and others.

In 2018, for example, he met with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May and provided her with records about her family history and a special, leatherbound copy of the Book of Mormon.

Sister Patricia Holland was a counselor in the church’s Young Women general presidency from 1984 to 1986. She and Elder Holland have three children, including Elder Matthew S. Holland, 53, who was called as a General Authority Seventy in April.

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