The governing body of the Voth, an ancient reptilian civilisation of the Delta Quadrant, which enforces a Doctrine holding that the Voth were the first intelligent life in their region.
The Ministry of Elders appears in the Voyager episode Distant Origin. The Voth are immensely advanced, travelling in a city ship capable of transwarp and of beaming Voyager whole into its interior, yet their society rests on Doctrine, the belief that they arose where they now live.
The scientist Forra Gegen finds the remains of a human Voyager crewman and concludes that the Voth share ancestry with humans, descending from Earth's hadrosaurs. He tracks down Voyager, and with Chakotay's help gathers evidence for his Distant Origin theory.
Brought before Minister Odala, Gegen refuses to recant, and Chakotay argues that the true story of a people who crossed the galaxy is the nobler one. Odala is unmoved. She threatens to imprison Voyager's crew and destroy the ship, and Gegen withdraws his theory to save them, accepting reassignment away from his research.