The following is excerpted from LDS Living. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
On March 5, 2024, the Church announced it had purchased the Kirtland Temple in Ohio. This historic news was exciting for members of the Church, and left many wondering, will the temple be renovated and dedicated for sacred ordinance work?
On the day the announcement was made, a Church webpage stated that the “Kirtland Temple will be maintained and presented as a historic building that is open to the public.” In a recent interview on the All In podcast, Elder Kyle S. McKay offered a bit more insight on this decision.
Elder McKay is a General Authority Seventy of the Church and is the Church Historian and Recorder and Executive Director of the Church History Department.
In the All In episode, he said, “[The Kirtland Temple] was never a functioning temple in the way we view them now. We didn’t perform the ordinances in that temple that we do in all of our current operating temples.”
He went on to explain that the Kirtland Temple has been described as a “restoration temple” because heavenly messengers appeared in the temple to restore the priesthood keys needed to establish the kingdom of God on earth.
“So with the significance of the Restoration in mind, we’re going to keep this as a historic site. And that decision was made by President Nelson and the First Presidency,” Elder McKay says. “And I’m delighted that it will stay that way. We want to keep it old. We want to keep it authentic. We want it to be safe, but we want that old temple to be with us and to remind us of what happened.”
Elder McKay isn’t the only one happy about this decision.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
