The Manti Utah Temple — a pioneer-era house of the Lord dating back nearly 140 years — reopened Monday, March 11, for media and special-guest following extensive refurbishment and refreshening.
“We regard a temple as the most sacred structure in the Church,” said Church President and Prophet Russell M. Nelson at the April 2019 general conference after announcing plans to renovate the Church’s pioneer-era temples. “As we speak of our temples old and new, may each of us signify by our actions that we are true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. May we renovate our lives through our faith and trust in Him.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released two dozen interior and exterior photographs of the Manti temple, the Church’s third-oldest of its functioning temples, in conjunction with a media-day event held Monday morning at the temple. Open-house tours of the temple begin this week.
The images were first published on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Monday’s media day and upcoming Manti open house
Elder Hugo E. Martínez, a General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the Utah Area presidency, presided at the event and welcomed media representatives. He was joined by President Camille N. Johnson, Relief Society general president, and Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt, a General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director of the Temple Department.
Following Monday’s media tour and interviews with the participating Church leaders, invited guests will tour the renovated house of the Lord through Thursday, March 14.
Public open-house tours begin Thursday, March 14, and continue through Friday, April 5, excluding Sundays. Reservations are available and encouraged. The temple’s upper floors are accessible only by stairways; those with mobility concerns are welcome but will be able to only view the temple’s main floor.
The Manti Utah Temple is scheduled to be rededicated in a single session at 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 21. An assigned presiding Church leader has yet to be announced.
The rededication session will be broadcast to all units within the Manti temple district, with the units expected to hold their standard two-hour Church meetings at their regular times that day.
The history of the Manti Utah Temple
Before the arrival of Latter-day Saints settlers, the Sanpitch (now Sanpete) Valley was inhabited by Ute, Paiute and other Numic-speaking peoples. At the invitation of Ute Chief Wakara, Brigham Young sent 224 men, women and children to settle the area in 1849. By 1870, the settler population had increased to 6,700, with the majority being Danish and other Scandinavian Latter-day Saints.
A temple in the valley was first mentioned by Brigham Young in 1873 in a conference in nearby Ephraim; on June 25, 1875, the Church formally announced a temple for Manti. Brigham Young broke ground on April 25, 1877, as he returned from dedicating the St. George Utah Temple earlier that month.
The temple was designed by William Folsom, an assistant to Church architect Truman O. Angell; Folsom also designed the St. George Tabernacle.
Dedication — and rededication a century later
Eleven years after ground was broken and with construction continuing despite poverty and persecution, the Manti Temple was dedicated. President Wilford Woodruff, then president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and later the Church’s fourth President, offered a dedicatory prayer in a private session on May 17, 1888. “Show favor unto all who have helped to forward this work by good wishes, good words or good deeds,” he prayed.
Lorenzo Snow, a future Church president who then was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, read the dedicatory prayer in general sessions held May 21-23, 1888.
Almost a century later, in 1982, the Manti Utah Temple underwent extensive renovations, including refurbishment and the addition of an elevator.
in June 1985, President Gordon B. Hinckley, then a counselor in the First Presidency, rededicated the temple following renovations. Asking the Lord to sanctify the temple, he prayed that “all who will enter it through the years to come, may feel the presence of Thy Spirit and recognize that they are in holy precincts.”
Its place among pioneer-era temples
The Manti temple was the Church of Jesus Christ’s fifth constructed in the latter days and is third oldest still in operation. The first two were the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples — the Church recently purchased the Kirtland Temple from the Community of Christ church, and the original Nauvoo Temple was left behind by the Saints who were forced to migrate to the Salt Lake Valley; it was later destroyed by fire and a tornado.
Temples in Utah were later built and dedicated — in order — in St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake before the end of the 19th century.
During April 2019 general conference, President Nelson announced the renovation of several pioneer-era temples — including the 74,792-square-foot Manti temple, which required mechanical upgrades and technology to allow the ordinances and covenants to be administered in multiple languages.
Following that announcement, the St. George Utah Temple was the first to close and begin renovations, in November 2019, as well as the first to be rededicated, on Dec. 10, 2023.
The Salt Lake Temple closed in December 2019 for extensive renovations and seismic upgrading. The latest projection for completion is for 2026.
On May 1, 2021, President Nelson announced plans to preserve “the pioneer craftsmanship, artwork and character” of the Manti temple — as well as plans to construct a second temple in Utah’s Sanpete Valley, in the city of Ephraim. A closure date of Oct. 1, 2021, was set to start the multiyear renovations.
Attention to detail
The ordinance-room murals are among the most noteworthy artwork throughout the temple, with original work done by well-known Latter-day Saint artists.
Painted by C.C.A. Christensen, the murals in the instruction room known as “the creation room” are the only 19th-century ones remaining in the temple. Those murals depict the Creation of the earth, with scenes of erupting volcanoes, dinosaurs and verdant scenes with animals.
The original murals in “the garden room,” which depict the Garden of Eden, were painted by Christensen’s friend, Danquart Anthon Weggeland, directly on the wall’s plaster.
When the plaster delaminated in 1944, canvas was applied on the walls, with new murals commissioned. The new murals were started by Joseph Everett and completed by Robert L. Shepherd after Everett’s death.
Minerva Teichert was commissioned to create new murals for “the world room” room, painting on the canvas on the walls in that instruction room after the plaster with the original murals there replaced in 1946. Teichert completed most of the work in April and May 1947, with minor additions following later in 1947 and 1948.
Teichert’s mural narrative begins with the Tower of Babel, with the artist painting Old Testament figures and characters from European history as progressing toward a Zion community. The placement of an indigenous chieftain in the center of the west wall identifies the American continent as a place for latter-day gathering.
In 1946, Shepherd added murals in the baptistry, and as part of the 1982 renovation, Wes Wright painted additional scenes with scriptural quotations on the baptistry’s north and south walls.
The temple’s historic murals were meticulously restored by highly skilled art conservators. Among their efforts, they removed varnish that was damaging Christensen’s mural in the creation room, repaired cracks in Shepherd’s mural in the garden room, cleaned Teichert’s mural in the world room and repaired damaged canvas and plaster in the baptistry.
Other renovation efforts
Renovations provided upgrades to building systems and support spaces in the temple’s annex as well as a preservation of the historic sacred edifice. They included:
- A new entrance and gathering space added to the annex’s north side.
- A new exit for brides and grooms.
- Upgrading landscaping that includes new plants and trees throughout the grounds.
- A new waterproofing system on the east foundation wall, to resolve water-seepage issues into the temple in past decades.
- A new marriage waiting room.
- Additional lockers in dressing areas.
- Refreshed carpet, paint and furniture in selected areas.
- Updated mechanical and plumbing systems and laundry equipment.
Also, video projectors were installed in instruction rooms to present the endowment ceremony through video, rather than the live narration previously offered at the Manti temple.
Temples in Utah
The four pioneer-era houses of the Lord — the St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake temples — are among the 28 total in Utah, which is home to the Church’s worldwide headquarters and nearly 2.2 million Latter-day Saints.
Utah’s other dedicated and currently operating temples are the Bountiful, Brigham City, Cedar City, Draper, Jordan River, Monticello, Mount Timpanogos, Ogden, Oquirrh Mountain, Orem, Payson, Provo City Center, Saratoga Springs and Vernal temples.
The Red Cliffs Utah Temple in St. George is scheduled to be dedicated on Sunday, March 24; the Taylorsville Utah Temple on Sunday, June 2; and the Layton Utah Temple on Sunday, June 16.
Six other Utah temples are under construction — Deseret Peak, Ephraim, Heber Valley, Lindon, Smithfield and Syracuse. And after its Feb. 24 closure, the recently renamed Provo Utah Rock Canyon Utah Temple will be undergoing redesign and reconstruction for the next several years.
