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I was ordained a High Priest many, many years ago. Recently our Stake came out with an announcement that said:
Quote:Our next Stake General Priesthood Meeting — for all Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood holders — will be held on xxx, x PM at the Stake Center.
The Annual Stake High Priests Quorum Meeting* will immediately follow the general meeting.
*The Stake Presidency, Ward/Branch Bishoprics and Members of the Stake High Council are invited to attend the Stake High Priest Quorum Meeting.
While the High Priests are in their meeting, Elders and Aaronic Priesthood holders are invited to gather in the Cultural Hall for refreshments. We look forward to seeing you there for what is always a great meeting.
I have no calling in the Bishopric or Stake. So, my question is: what PH do I hold? The standard response will be, “when you have no calling in the
Bishopric or Stake, you revert to the Elders quorum”. So, the issue seems to be “once an Elder, always an Elder”. The whole thing seems confusing.
I can never remember which callings are Aaronic and which Melchizedek. I don’t let it bother me since it has little bearing on my everyday church life. If I attempt to explain it, it will probably make things worse but here goes. 
These definitions are overly simplified:
Quorum – a priesthood body that meets together
Office – delineation of duties and responsibilities within a priesthood
Elder’s Quorum – a general quorum for all holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood regardless of office held. Elders, high priests, patriarchs, 70s, and apostles will all belong to an Elder’s Quorum.
High Priest Quorum – a quorum reserved for stake leadership made up of currently serving stake presidency members, bishopric members, high council members, and the patriarch.
Once you’ve been ordained a high priest, you’re always a high priest, but you are only a member of the High Priest’s Quorum if you hold a stake leadership calling.
Or they could say, all priesthood holders who are HP’s & who do not hold a leadership position, you are now an Elder. (end of confusion)
As a member of the stake high priest quorum it sounds like Nibbler has it right. It’s like being ordained a bishop. Once ordained you’re always a bishop but you only act as bishop when in the calling – otherwise you go to elders quorum. Likewise you’re always a high priest but only part of the quorum when in a calling requiring you to be a high priest. It really isn’t all that complicated. I do believe it sounds complicated. This is because of tradition (us trying to use old scriptural sounding names for things and using it for modern purposes). Somewhat similarly, we used to have ward seventies. I was rather surprised when chasing down an inactive on the ward list and seeing that his listed priesthood was Seventy. “What kind of former GA do we have hiding out in our ward boundary?” I thought – only to find out that it was nothing quite so interesting.
We are trying to balance being a literal restoration of the ancient church and also following modern revelation at the same time.
There was a time when, if a member was ordained as a High Priest they couldn’t be ordained as a 70 later on. No explanation was given other than “it’s current revelation”. Back in the olden days, there was a clear definition of our PH responsibilities in the church. Elders were the back
bone & work horses of the church. Seventies had missionary responsibilities in the stake and the HP’s temple work & leadership (stake & ward level).
Today it seems: “everyone is a missionary”, “everyone does FH & temple work & general work horse assignments, and HP’s are leadership, if called. If not called you are an Elder again.
That’s fine, I’m not complaining. It seems confusing at times for me as an oldtimer.
Then again, it doesn’t take much to confuse me.
Vestiges of the old way of doing things. At one time we had Priesthood Leadership meetings. Maybe we still do — these are just a reincarnation of those meetings. When RMN (affectionately referred to a Hustle M Nelson given all the changes he implemented in his early time in office) combined the HP and EQ quorum’s he had to figure out what to do with the HP meeting and the fact the SP is the president of the HP quorum. Now we have this confusing meeting. I just accept it as a corollary to the combining of the two quorums.
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