Latter Day Saint movement

Overview

The Latter Day Saint movement is the family of churches that trace their origins to Joseph Smith, who organized a church in New York in 1830, weeks after publishing the Book of Mormon, a scripture he said he had translated from ancient gold plates. Its members see their faith as the restoration of Christ's original church, led by living prophets and guided by scripture beyond the Bible. By far the largest body is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, which counted almost 17.9 million members at the end of 2025. The next largest, the Community of Christ in Independence, Missouri, has about 250,000. Outsiders long called members Mormons, after their scripture; the Salt Lake City church stopped using that nickname in 2018 and asks others to use its full name and to call members Latter-day Saints.^[10–14]

History

A prophet in western New York 1816–1830

Joseph Smith grew up in a struggling farm family near Palmyra, New York, amid rival revivals. In the account the church treats as scripture, he prayed in the woods in 1820, aged 14, and saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, who told him to join none of the churches. He said that an angel, Moroni, later showed him where gold plates lay buried, which he translated by divine power; the Book of Mormon was printed in March 1830. Latter-day Saints believe heavenly messengers gave Smith and Oliver Cowdery the priesthood in 1829. On 6 April 1830 Smith organized a small church at Fayette, New York.^[15–19]

Kirtland, Missouri and Nauvoo 1831–1844

Members soon gathered at Kirtland, Ohio, where they built a temple, and in Jackson County, Missouri, which Smith named as the place of Zion. Missourians, alarmed by the newcomers' numbers, votes and beliefs, drove them out by force, and in 1838 the governor ordered that they be expelled or exterminated. The refugees built Nauvoo, Illinois, on the Mississippi; it grew to rival Chicago, swelled by British converts after missions began there in 1837. In Nauvoo Smith introduced baptism for the dead, new temple rites and, secretly among leaders, plural marriage. After he had a dissident newspaper's press destroyed, he and his brother Hyrum were jailed at Carthage, where a mob killed them on 27 June 1844.^[20–24]

Succession and the trek west 1844–1877

Several men claimed to succeed Smith. Most members followed Brigham Young, the longest-serving of the Twelve Apostles; others went with rivals such as James Strang and Sidney Rigdon, or stayed in the Midwest. Under mob pressure Young led an exodus from Nauvoo in 1846, and on 24 July 1847 his pioneer company entered the Salt Lake Valley. Tens of thousands of emigrants, many of them European converts, followed by wagon, handcart or on foot before the railroad arrived in 1869. Conflict with Washington brought a federal army to Utah in 1857; that September local Latter-day Saint militiamen, with some Native American allies, killed about 120 emigrants from Arkansas at Mountain Meadows.^[25–29]

Plural marriage and statehood 1852–1904

The church proclaimed plural marriage openly in 1852. Congress banned it in the territories in 1862 and, from the 1880s, prosecuted polygamists, took away their vote and moved to seize church property. In 1890 President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto ending new plural marriages, and Utah became the 45th state in 1896. Some plural marriages went on, mainly in Mexico, until a second manifesto in 1904 made the practice grounds for excommunication. Groups that kept it, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on the Utah–Arizona border, are separate from the main church.^[30–34]

A worldwide church 1904–today

In the 20th century missionaries carried the faith through Latin America, the Pacific islands, Asia and Africa, and since 1996 most members have lived outside the United States. From 1852 men of Black African descent were barred from the priesthood and Black members from temple rites. In June 1978 President Spencer W. Kimball announced a revelation ending the ban, and in 2013 the church disavowed the racial theories once used to justify it. After Russell M. Nelson died in September 2025, Dallin H. Oaks became the 18th president in October. At the end of 2025 it had about 78,600 full-time teaching missionaries in the field.^[35–39]

Community of Christ and other branches 1852–today

Members who rejected Young's leadership and plural marriage reorganized in 1852, and in 1860 Smith's son Joseph Smith III became their president; the church later made Independence, Missouri, its home. This Reorganized Church moved toward mainline Protestantism: it opened its priesthood to women in 1984, a step that split it, and renamed itself the Community of Christ in 2001. In 2024 it sold the Kirtland Temple and its historic Nauvoo sites to the Salt Lake City church for $192.5 million. In June 2025 Stassi Cramm became its first woman prophet-president. Smaller branches include the Strangites and the polygamous fundamentalist groups.^[40–44]

Key moments

1. 1830 CEThe Book of Mormon · Palmyra and Fayette, New York

Beliefs

The Restoration

Latter-day Saints believe that after the apostles died the church fell away and lost the authority to act for God, and that God restored both the true church and its priesthood through Joseph Smith. The Salt Lake City church therefore regards itself as the only fully authorized church, while seeing other churches as doing much good.^[45]

The Godhead

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

The Church of Jesus Christ teaches that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, not one substance as in the creeds; the Community of Christ affirms the Trinity. Members trust in Christ's atonement and resurrection, and stress faith, repentance, baptism by immersion and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands.^[46]

Continuing revelation

God still speaks today. The church president is sustained as a prophet, seer and revelator, and the canon of scripture stays open: new revelations can be added to it. Members are also urged to seek personal revelation for their own lives, families and church callings, and to test teachings by prayer.^[47]

Plan of salvation

Humans lived as spirits before birth and come to earth to gain a body and be tested. After the resurrection almost everyone, in the end, receives some degree of glory, in the celestial, terrestrial or telestial kingdom; only a few who reject God after knowing his power are left out.^[48]

Exaltation and eternal families

The highest hope is exaltation: couples sealed in a temple, and their children, can remain families forever, and the faithful may grow to become like God. This teaching on human divine potential, together with the rejection of the creeds, is a main reason some other Christians dispute that Latter-day Saints are Christian.^[49]

Practice

Sunday worship and lay leadership

Congregations, called wards, meet on Sunday for sacrament meeting, where the Lord's Supper is taken in memory of Christ, followed by classes; several wards form a stake. Bishops and other local leaders are unpaid volunteers. Worthy boys enter the priesthood at about 12 and men later hold its higher office, while women teach, preach and lead organizations but are not ordained.^[50]

Temple ordinances

Temples, unlike meetinghouses, are open only to members who hold a recommend confirming that they keep church standards, including tithing. There members receive the endowment, are sealed in marriage for eternity and perform baptisms and other rites by proxy for the dead, the reason for the church's vast genealogy work. Endowed members wear a sacred undergarment.^[51]

Word of Wisdom and tithing

A health code called the Word of Wisdom, which members trace to an 1833 revelation to Smith, rules out alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea. Members are asked to give a tenth of their income to the church, and paying this tithe is a condition for entering the temple. The code shapes daily life and marks members out from their neighbours.^[52]

Baptism and missions

Children are baptized at eight. Young men may serve a two-year mission from age 18 and young women an 18-month mission from 19, paying their own way, and many retired couples also serve. Along with temple marriage, the mission marks a young member's passage to adult responsibility in the church.^[53]

Holy days

General Conference

First weekend of April and of October

Twice a year church leaders speak from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City to members watching worldwide, and the gathering votes to sustain the church's officers. A new president is sustained at a solemn assembly, as Oaks was in April 2026.^[54]

Pioneer Day

24 July (summer)

Marks the day in 1847 when Brigham Young reached the Salt Lake Valley. It is a state holiday in Utah, with parades and fireworks, and congregations elsewhere hold smaller celebrations.^[55]

Easter and Christmas

Easter (spring); 25 December (winter)

Latter-day Saints keep the main Christian feasts. The church has no tradition of Lent, though in recent years some members have begun to mark the week before Easter more fully.^[56]

People

Joseph Smith

founder · 1805–1844

Born in Sharon, Vermont, he is honoured by Latter-day Saints as the prophet of the Restoration. Besides publishing the Book of Mormon he dictated scores of revelations, founded towns, introduced temple rites and plural marriage, ran for US president, and was killed by a mob at 38.^[57]

Brigham Young

prophet · 1801–1877

A Vermont-born carpenter baptized in 1832, he led the main body to Utah, became the church's second president and the first governor of Utah Territory, and directed the founding of hundreds of settlements. He married more than 20 wives.^[58]

Spencer W. Kimball

prophet

As church president he announced in June 1978 the revelation that opened the priesthood and temples to members of every race, ending a ban dating from 1852. The change opened the way for the church's rapid growth in Africa.^[59]

Dallin H. Oaks

prophet

A lawyer, former president of Brigham Young University and Utah Supreme Court justice, he became an apostle in 1984. On 14 October 2025, aged 93, he was named the church's 18th president, with Henry B. Eyring and D. Todd Christofferson as counselors.^[60]

Scripture

The Book of Mormon

1830

It tells of Israelites led by the prophet Lehi from Jerusalem to the Americas about 600 BCE, their split into Nephites and Lamanites, and a visit by the risen Christ. By its own account the prophet Mormon abridged the records and his son Moroni buried them.^[61]

Doctrine and Covenants

1835, later enlarged

Smith's revelations, first gathered as the Book of Commandments, were published in 1835 under this title, setting out his teaching on the church's early organization and doctrine. Both the Salt Lake City church and the Community of Christ count it among their four scriptures.^[62]

Pearl of Great Price

canonized 1880

Scripture of the Salt Lake City church only. It gathers further writings by Smith, including the Book of Abraham, which he said he translated from Egyptian papyri bought in 1835, and passages expanding the biblical story.^[63]

Places

Sacred Grove, Manchester, New York

USA

The woods by the Smith farm near Palmyra where, by tradition, the First Vision took place. A few miles south is the Hill Cumorah, where Smith said he found the gold plates.^[64]

Kirtland Temple, Ohio

USA

The movement's first temple, dedicated in 1836, where Smith and Cowdery reported visions of Christ, Moses and Elijah. The Community of Christ owned it for over a century before selling it to the Salt Lake City church in 2024.^[65]

Nauvoo, Illinois

USA

Smith's city on the Mississippi, founded in 1839. Its temple, finished after his death, was burned in 1848; a replica was dedicated in 2002 on the same site, near restored homes of Smith and Young.^[66]

Temple Square, Salt Lake City

USA

The block at the centre of Young's city plan, home to the Salt Lake Temple, built over forty years from 1853 to 1893, and the domed Tabernacle, at the heart of the church's headquarters city.^[67]

Independence, Missouri

USA

Named by Smith as the site of Zion and its temple. It is the headquarters of the Community of Christ, with its modern temple, and of a small church that holds the Temple Lot.^[68]

Where it spread

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Quarrying Granite for Mormon Temple, No. 119 from the series "Views in the Rocky Mountains"United States, 1870/78Great Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake CityUnited States, 1868/69Mormon Emigrant Train, Echo Canyonca. 1870

Numbers

Members on church rolls, whole movement

c. 18 million (2025)^[69]

Church-reported rolls: 17.9 million in the Salt Lake City church plus about 250,000 in the Community of Christ. Low: Britannica's older 16 million. Censuses suggest far fewer people name the faith as their own.

Census self-identification vs church rolls

Roughly a third to under half^[70]

Canada 2021 census 85,315 v. 211,581 on rolls; Australia 2021 57,253 v. 165,272; New Zealand 2018 54,123 v. 120,992 (rolls at end 2025).

US adults identifying as Latter-day Saints

1.5–2%^[71]

National censuses

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing 2021, 'Religious affiliation in Australia' (Table 4), CC BY 4.0. Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0342-01 Religion by visible minority and generation status: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts, released 2022-10-26. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Source: Stats NZ, 2018 Census, licensed by Stats NZ for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

How we know

The First Vision accounts

Smith described his first vision at least four times between 1832 and 1842. The earliest, in his own hand, stresses forgiveness of his sins and tells of one divine being; the 1838 account, now scripture, has the Father and the Son and the instruction to join no church. Historians also note that the story seems to have circulated little in the 1830s. The church argues the accounts differ only in emphasis, as retold memories do; sceptics read them as a story that grew over time.^[72]

Origins of the scriptures

Believers hold the Book of Mormon to be an ancient record. Some scholars outside the church read it as Smith's own work, shaped by the religious culture around him; an old theory that it borrowed from a novel by Solomon Spaulding is discredited. Papyri Smith had owned resurfaced at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and passed to the church in 1967; Egyptologists identified them as common funerary texts, yet the church still holds the Book of Abraham as scripture.^[73]

Common misconceptions

Glossary

Ward

A local congregation of a few hundred members, led by a lay bishop; a smaller one is a branch. Several wards make up a stake, led by a stake president.^[78]

Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood

The two orders of priesthood, named for biblical figures. Young men enter the Aaronic as deacons, teachers and priests, and adult men the Melchizedek as elders and high priests.^[79]

Endowment

A temple rite of adult initiation in which members are ritually washed and anointed, dressed in temple garments, shown a dramatic presentation of the creation and the fall, and taught what is needed to enter God's presence.^[80]

Sealing

The temple ordinance binding husband, wife and children for eternity; it can also be done by proxy for the dead.^[81]

Baptism for the dead

Baptism performed in a temple by a living member on behalf of someone who died without it. Names are found through family history research.^[82]

Temple recommend

Written authorization, based on worthiness and including payment of tithing, that allows a member to enter a temple.^[83]

Word of Wisdom

The health code in Doctrine and Covenants section 89, which forbids alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea.^[84]

Zion

The gathered community of the faithful and the city Smith planned to build in Jackson County, Missouri, in preparation for Christ's return.^[85]

First Presidency

The church president and his counselors, the highest governing body of the Church of Jesus Christ, above the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.^[86]