Religion: London’s Mormon Temple

Day after day they came, sloshing through England’s summer rain, jamming the road from London to the Surrey town of Lingfield with so many cars that the Automobile Association had to put up special yellow signs marking the way. What they came to see—retired army officers, shopkeepers, typical British families in holiday clothes—was a rectangular building faced with white Portland stone and topped by a spire sheathed in lead-coated copper: the London Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was the first Mormon temple to be built in Britain and the second in or near Europe (the other is in Bern, Switzerland). The new temple was opened to the public for 17 days, but after its dedication this week, only Mormons may enter who have been “recommended for participation in the various ceremonies” and bear certificates from their local churches that they are “morally clean, have paid their tithes, sustain the word of wisdom and sustain the authority of the church.”

The crowds of visitors (76,324 by head count) were handled by 40 young American missionaries who first guided their charges into a green tent to watch a movie showing the spread of Mormonism through the world. Then the visitors, warned not to talk or smoke within the temple, were escorted in groups through the building (cost: $1,700,000), saved their questions to be asked later. They had plenty of questions: Why was there a telephone switchboard? Why were there locker rooms and powder rooms with Queen Anne-style dressing tables? What was the green and beige drawing room, called the Celestial room, used for, and why should a church be furnished like a luxury hotel, with grey wall-to-wall carpeting, concealed lighting, air conditioning, and armchairs in fawn and black? Whispered one woman to her husband: “I’d like to come here for a holiday.”

From their tour conductors came ready answers. Mormon temples, which also house executive offices (hence the switchboard), are used primarily for two “sacred ordinances”: “marriage for eternity” and “baptism of the dead” (for which the London Temple has a massive font supported by twelve bronze oxen). Couples marrying for eternity first disrobe (hence the locker rooms), dress in white linen (the powder rooms), visit a small auditorium (Celestial room No. 1) to see slides showing “where we came from, why we are here, where we are going, and the laws which must be obeyed to attain the celestial degree of glory in the Kingdom of God.” From there they move to the drawing-room-style Celestial room No. 2 for contemplation before the actual ceremony of “sealing”—in a small room furnished with pale pink brocaded-satin chairs. In the ceremony called baptism of the dead, believers vicariously baptize their ancestors in the Mormon faith.

There are only 11,000 Mormons in Britain, with 75 chapels. Mormon leaders are sure the new temple will soon draw many converts. Said the temple’s president, Selvoy J. Boyer: “Hundreds of people who have been through the temple have asked our missionaries to visit them in their homes to talk to them about our faith.”