MANTI, Utah — Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called the art and craftsmanship of the Manti Utah Temple — including the murals, the spiral staircase, carved wood details, and the needlepoint cushions on altars and chairs — “stunningly beautiful,” “exquisite,” “intricate” and “beautiful.”
“This isn’t a museum of architecture and design,” said Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt, General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director of the Priesthood and Family Department and the Temple Department. “Perhaps the question we could ask ourselves is ‘Why did these Saints, why did these pioneers, sacrifice everything that they had so that they could build this holy house of the Lord?’”
Elder Schmitt and other Church leaders during interviews with the media at the beginning of the open-house period paid tribute to the faith and dedication of the people who settled Sanpete County and worked and sacrificed.
The temple has been closed the past two and a half years for renovation, and there will be a public open house with free tours from Thursday, March 14, to 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 view only 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.
Elder Schmitt said of the pioneers, “It’s because they knew that this is the place where they could be endowed with heavenly power to help them endure life’s challenges and life’s trials.” They also knew that it was in the temple where their families could be sealed together for eternity.
“Those wonderful Saints, those hard-working, those gritty Saints living in homes with dirt roofs, gave everything they had to construct this holy temple,” Elder Schmitt said. He added: “It stood majestic then, and it remains so today.”
Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson said, “Consider with me the Latter-day Saints who, while nurturing families, establishing farms and managing livestock, caring for those in need and building their communities, constructed a temple worthy of the presence of the Lord.”
While the craftsmanship is “exquisite,” President Johnson said that “perhaps more compelling to me is their faith in Jesus Christ and the power in making and keeping promises with God.”
The members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had taken the name of the Savior upon them at baptism and had also promised to remember and be like Him, and they built and supported the building of the temple so that sacred ordinances could be performed, President Johnson said.
“They believed in a covenant relationship, and they were keeping their covenants through their sacrifice and consecration,” she said.
Elder Hugo E. Martinez, General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the Church’s Utah Area presidency, noted how “this is a very significant temple.”
The Manti Utah Temple was originally dedicated in 1888 by Wilford Woodruff as the third temple dedicated in Utah — and the fifth in the Church. Then-Church President Brigham Young selected a site in 1877 on a hill, and it took 11 years to build. It was designed by architect William Folsom, who was the architect of the St. George Tabernacle and assistant to Church architect Truman O. Angell.
Elder Martinez noted “all of the sacrifices that were made as the [pioneer] settlers were settling in and building homes,” to build the temple here.
He said that as people come to the open house, he hopes they will feel the Spirit.
“I hope they will come and see, come and feel, and come and experience,” he said.
Manti Utah Temple renovation
The Manti Utah Temple is a multistory temple with towers at either end. Brigham Young intended for the Manti Utah Temple and the Logan Utah Temple in northern Utah to mirror each other.
There have been additions and renovations over the years with the annex, dressings rooms and mechanical upgrades and more in 1924, 1935, 1949, 1956, 1958 and 1964.
In 1982, the ordinance rooms were refurbished, an elevator was added to the east of the celestial room, a separate baptistry entrance was added, and the rooms surrounding the font were converted into sealing rooms.
During this recent renovation, a new entrance and a new bride and groom exit were added, and the loading dock was moved.
The east side was waterproofed, with workers digging down the temple footings, along with updated landscaping. Inside, there are new mechanical systems, new washing machines in the laundry, some new carpet and refreshed paint.
“We focused really on those things that would keep this building standing for another 50 to 100 years,” said Emily Utt, a historic sites curator. She added: “It was about stabilizing and protecting those things that really matter.”
The four instruction rooms are now equipped to show the endowment ceremony through audiovisual presentation, as three of them have projectors and retractable screens and standalone screens installed in the fourth. Previously, the endowment was presented by temple workers in a “live session.”
Now the endowment instruction will be available in any language, Elder Schmitt said. The temple endowment will still be progressive, with patrons moving from room to room, he said.
Assembly room
It’s 95 steps up the spiral staircase to the assembly rooms on the top floor. The room is patterned after the meeting rooms in the Kirtland Temple and Nauvoo Temple, and similar ones are found in the Salt Lake, St. George and Logan temples, with tiered pulpits on either end.
It’s the original woodwork on the pulpits and benches, and many of the glass panes are original to the temple. There is still the original door hardware throughout the temple.
Manti temple murals
“The interior focus of this project was the murals — the conservation of these great masterpieces in the Church,” Utt said.
The instruction rooms are representative of the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the world, also a room prior to the celestial room. There are also murals in the baptistry.
In the creation room, the murals by C.C.A. Christensen showing the different stages of the Creation — with volcanic eruptions, plants, dinosaurs and animals — were painted in 1886 and are the only 19th-century murals in the temple.
A conservation team based in Chicago came and helped clean off 130 years of “gunk,” including years of grime and varnish, and worked for about four months, Utt said.
Utt said it was “a very careful and very detailed process literally an inch at a time.”
In the garden room, representing the Garden of Eden, the plaster was first painted by Danquart Anthon Weggeland. The plaster delaminated in 1944, and it had to be removed. Joseph Everett began the new murals on canvas and finished one wall when he died. Robert L. Shepherd completed them after Everett’s death.
They were “two great mural artists in the Church at the time,” Utt said.
In the garden room, there were a few touch-up spots and areas where the canvas needed to be reglued.
Shepherd also did the murals in the baptistry, which include depictions of Jesus’ baptism, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery’s baptism, and ancient world baptisms, along with four panels of scriptures.
The plaster was separating from the walls and damaging the canvas, Utt said. The murals were carefully removed and sent for conservation to Chicago, where they were cleaned and repaired. The walls were replastered and art reinstalled.
In the world room is Minerva Tiechert’s mural that took 23 working days and has more than 120 people depicting the gathering of Israel. Like the garden room, the murals needed only minor touch-ups and places where it was adhered.
President Johnson said of Teichert: “She is another example of another Latter-day Saint who consecrated her time and talents to the house of the Lord.”
In the back, the mural shows the Tower of Babel, and on one side, the gathering of the world with many cultures and people is represented, as others are in shadow reaching out for help. The other side shows biblical scenes, with Abraham, Joseph being sold into Egypt and Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. It comes together at the front of the room with a representation of Zion.
Focus on the Savior
Throughout the temple, there are many paintings that depict the Savior.
An original painting in the entryway shows the Savior Jesus Christ holding a lamb, with several more at his feet. In the background is a depiction of Sanpete County.
“What a beautiful reminder that painting is that the temple was erected at great sacrifice as the house of the Lord, the Lamb of God, who for us committed for us, the ultimate sacrifice,” President Johnson said.
“He, Jesus Christ, is both the Lamb and the Shepherd. You will find that He is the center of everything we do.”
Elder Schmitt said: “This temple stands as our witness of Jesus Christ, that He lives, of the reality of His Resurrection and of the reality that the heavens continue to be open, that there are living prophets on the earth today.”
Correction: In an earlier version, some references to Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt’s last name were misspelled as Elder Schmidtt.
