High-Ranking Leader Leaves Mormon Church: The Second Anointing w Hans & Birgitta Mattsson | Ep. 1919

When High-Ranking Leaders Leave: Hans Mattsson, the Second Anointing, and the Swedish Crisis

What happens when a devoted high-ranking Latter-day Saint leader begins asking difficult questions about church history and doctrine, and then walks away? The case of Hans Mattsson, a former Swedish mission president and recipient of the church's most secretive ordinance, offers a rare window into the tensions between institutional loyalty and theological integrity. His departure, along with a subsequent mass apostasy in Sweden, raises fundamental questions about transparency, exclusivity, and the limits of faith when confronted with historical evidence.

The second anointing stands at the center of this story. For most church members, this ordinance remains entirely unknown, a fact that itself raises important questions about informed consent and institutional transparency in religious practice.

Background: The Second Anointing and Swedish Mission Leadership

According to the Mormon Stories Podcast, the second anointing represents the church's most sacred, most secretive, and arguably most consequential temple ordinance. Unlike the regular endowment, the foundational ceremony most active members receive once, the second anointing is restricted to a select few. Hans Mattsson received this rare ordinance while serving in a high administrative capacity in Europe, called to the temple specifically by church leadership to participate in the ceremony.

The ordinance itself, as described by Mattsson in his podcast interview, involves foot washing and anointing with oil, performed by senior church leaders. Church leaders explained to him that while the initial endowment confers conditional blessings, to become kings and priests "if you remain worthy", the second anointing removes that conditionality. Recipients are promised exaltation and kingdom roles as an unconditional gift, contingent only on their past worthiness at the moment of the ceremony.