or, later, receiving a stipend from the church headquarters. The practice of charging for blessings was put to an end when it came to the attention of the church leadership that patriarchs were traveling door to door and "underbidding each other in the price of blessings." There was a tradition among church members that a blessing for health was more potent if it was received from an ordained patriarch. In the 1940s, the church issued an instruction that such blessings were not to be seen as being any different than those received from any other priesthood holder. Local stake patriarchs may be designated as "non-functioning" if he is incapacitated by age or illness, leaves to serve as a full-time missionary, moves from the stake, is absent from his home for other reasons, or is approved to be called to another position of church administration. (Church leaders must make advance requests to the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in order to call a functioning patriarch as a bishop, stake president, or high councilor, but such requests are "rarely approved".) In such circumstances, the patriarch is relieved from his responsibilities of giving patriarchal blessings, but he is not formally released and will be able to function as a patriarch again if approved to do so. If a patriarch who has previously been designated as non-functioning is made functional again, he does not have to be re-ordained since he has retained the priesthood office. Patriarch emeritus The priesthood calling patriarch emeritus was created in October 1979, when the Patriarch to the Church, Eldred G. Smith, was released from active duties and designated as an emeritus general authority. Smith was the only Presiding Patriarch in LDS Church history to have been designated patriarch emeritus. Fathers as patriarchs The LDS Church teaches that a father should be a (non-ordained) patriarch in his household, meaning that it is his duty to preside within his own family in providing for the basic physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of all family members. This does not always hold true when the father is not a member of the church. Accordingly, it is proper for priesthood representatives who are visiting a home to defer to him. If he is worthy and holds the proper priesthood authority, it is likewise customary for the church to invite or allow him to officiate in priesthood ordinances for his own family, including