The Mormon Church is a cultural and religious group that was created by Joseph Smith, Jr. in the 1920s in northern New York. This is the main branch of the so-called Latter-day Saint movement of restorationist Christianity. Instead of the Bible, they use the sacred texts of the Book of Mormon, which, in their opinion, contains the sayings of the ancient prophets who lived on the American continent around 2200 BC. In this article we will tell the story of this religious group, some interesting facts.
Legend of occurrence
The Mormon Church appeared thanks to its main preacher, Joseph Smith, Jr. He claimed that when he was 14 years old, an angel named Moroni appeared to him, who spoke about ancient manuscripts that were kept nearby. Allegedly, they were engraved on gold sheets by ancient prophets.
These writings contain a narrative of people whom God brought to the Western Hemisphere from Jerusalem long before the birth of Jesus Christ. According to the tradition on which the Mormon Church is based, Moroni was the last of these prophets, he hid a book that God promised to open only in the last days.
Smith claimed that the very next day he found this mysterious place by divine inspiration. There, the very sheets were buried. Moroni commanded Smith to come to this place every year for four years to receive appropriate instructions. Finally, he was allowed to pick up the sheets, which he translated into English.
After Smith's death in 1844, Mormons followed their new leader, Brigham Young. As a result, they settled in the area of modern Utah.
Features of the Mormon lifestyle
To understand what a Mormon church is, you need to know some of the features and rules that live in this religion.
Traditionally, they have large families. If at the very beginning a married couple had an average of about seven children, then by the middle of the XIX century this figure had grown to a value of 8.2 children per family.
Initially, Mormons practiced polygamy, but later abandoned this tradition. Now polygamy is found only in orthodox fundamentalists. The official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is such a practice.
Supporters of the Mormon Church participate in all public affairs, pledging to be exclusively law-abiding citizens. For them, the observance of the principle of freedom of religion and conscience is of great importance.
Sacraments and rites
Their creed includes five basic sacraments. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit, baptism at the age of 8, communion with water and bread, ordination to the priesthood, temple ordinances. In the view of Mormons, there are two types of marriage - secular (for worldly life) and spiritual (for life in heaven).
According to tradition, on Mondays they always have family evenings. Once a week evening for young people, they are attended by boys and girls aged 12 to 18 years. The basis of such evenings is charity work, social work, lessons, sports and dancing. Once a month, an evening of Relief Society takes place. That's what this is a Mormon church.
Current situation
Currently, most Mormons attribute themselves to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can also meet non-practicing and independent Mormons. Their immediate center of cultural influence is located in Utah, where they came back in 1844, after the Smith estimates.
When defining a Mormon church, it must be borne in mind that all its followers adhere to strict rules. They abide by a code obliging them to lead a healthy lifestyle. Mormons abstain from any alcohol, tea, tobacco, coffee, substances or products that can be addictive.
Their core values are family-oriented, maintaining a close relationship between distant and close relatives, between different generations of the same family. They strictly follow a chaste law requiring that you remain faithful to your partner.
Considering themselves to be Christians, they do not belong to any of the major currents. Moreover, they have similar cultural, moral and family values with most of them. Some of their beliefs are fundamentally different from the mainstream Christian movements.
Own views
Mormons have their own view of cosmology. For example, they are convinced that all people are the spiritual children of God. To return to him, they need to follow the example of Jesus Christ, accepting his atonement through the sacrament of baptism.
Mormons believe that the church of Christ was restored through Joseph Smith, and is now governed by the living apostles and prophets. Central to their religion is the fact that God necessarily speaks with his children, answering the prayers that appeal to him.
God, according to Mormons, takes care of every person. Each time, making the right choice, a person can improve.
Due to the high birth rates and active missionary activity within the community over the past few decades, their numbers have increased significantly. If in 1971 there were about three million Mormons around the world, in 2017 it approached the mark of 16 million people.
Headquarters
It is known about this religion that it has its own headquarters for the Mormon church. This is an office building in the form of a skyscraper. It was built in 1972 in the city of Salt Lake City. The headquarters of the Mormon Church is in Utah.
It is from this place that church leaders control its activities in the territory of 160 countries of the world. On a planet, leadership is decentralized at the regional, local, and national levels of leadership from among the unpaid clergy.
At Mormon Church headquarters, Temple Square is considered one of Utah’s main attractions. Every year it attracts millions of visitors. The square consists of the home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a temple, two visitor centers and the Assembly building.
Buildings around Temple Square
To the east of the square is the General Directorate of the Church, as well as the Joseph Smith Memorial, the administrative building of the church, and the building of the Relief Society. All these premises are necessarily used for offices by various departments.
To the west of Temple Square is the family history library. It is the largest facility on the planet for all kinds of genealogical research, as well as a museum of church art and history.
In the north is the famous conference room. This is the largest audience in the world, which seats 21 thousand people. This building is used to broadcast the semi-annual General Conference. It broadcasts for individual groups of various church members located in different parts of the world. Recently it has become a popular and sought-after venue for various kinds of performances and music concerts.
The repository of documents in Granite Mountain
There are many secrets, mysteries and legends about Mormons. For example, many are fascinated by the story of the Mormon Church record vault located on Mount Granite in Utah. This is a mass of hard rocks with a length of one and a half kilometers.
This is where the archive belongs to the Mormons. It is located in well-protected underground spaces at a depth of about 180 meters. The vault was built in 1965 in the northern part of Little Cottonwood Canyon.
It is known that there is a room for long-term storage of archival documents enclosed in microfilms, many rooms for receiving and delivering documents, administrative rooms, a special laboratory for the restoration and processing of microfilms.
Favorable conditions for storing documents are created due to special climate control. The building is protected by armed guards. At the entrance are 14-ton doors that can withstand a nuclear explosion.
It contains all the genealogical information on a million microfiche and almost two and a half million microfilm rolls. In total, this is approximately three billion pages of genealogy records. These documents were compiled by Mormons from libraries, archives, and churches in more than a hundred countries around the world. Currently, the store is growing, increasing by about 40 thousand rolls of microfilm per year.
In 1999, Mormons began digitizing this information, which is published in the public domain.
There is another store, which is located three kilometers further down the canyon.
Mormons in Russia
Does this religious organization exist on the territory of the Russian Federation? The first Mormons in our country appeared in 1843, when the first two preachers arrived. However, they were soon recalled due to the death of Smith.
In 1895, the family of Johan Lindelof from Sweden was baptized in St. Petersburg.
The modern history of this religious organization begins in 1989, when an employee of the American embassy received the authority to hold meetings of members of this organization in his apartment. In January 1990, the first missionaries arrived in Leningrad. In Vyborg, they organized a parish. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was officially registered in late spring 1991.
Today, Moscow is the center of the Eastern Europe region, it includes most of the countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as Bulgaria and Turkey.
The most famous Mormon church in Moscow is located at 14 Sredny Ovchinnikovsky Lane. Various services and meetings with like-minded people are regularly held there.
Number
Mormons themselves claim that their number worldwide is almost 16 million people. About six million live in the United States. Here is the largest diaspora.
In the Russian Federation, according to church statistics, there are about 23 thousand Mormons.
Mormons carry out missionary work in approximately 170 countries around the world. Their main book, Mormon, has been translated into 93 languages, including Russian. In total, there are 156 Mormon temples in the world. Closest to Moscow are religious buildings in Helsinki and Kiev.
Unlike the Christian Church
The main difference between Mormons is that they believe that God and Jesus Christ have physical bodies like human ones. But the Holy Spirit for them is exclusively a spiritual person without a physical body.
They consider the Bible not the only scripture that God has given to humanity. They are convinced that God spoke through his prophets to people at different times and in different places.
After the ascension of Jesus Christ, according to Mormons, the truth was lost, and the teachings of God's son were distorted. It was only possible to restore it through their prophet Joseph Smith.