Mormon

Member of a Christian sect, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded at Fayette, New York, in 1830 by Joseph Smith. According to Smith, who had received visions and divine revelations during the 1820s, Mormon was an ancient prophet in North America whose hidden writings, the Book of Mormon, were shown to him in 1827. The book is accepted by Mormons as part of the Christian scriptures. Originally persecuted, the Mormons migrated west to Salt Lake City, Utah, under Brigham Young's leadership and prospered; their headquarters are here. The Mormon Church is a missionary church with a worldwide membership of about 6 million.

The Church has two orders of priesthood, ‘Melchizedek’ dealing with religious and ‘Aaron’ with temporal matters. Mormons believe in the authority of their scriptures (the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants) and in the supreme value of personal revelation, especially that received by the president of the sect. The millennium is expected, and baptism by proxy is practised on behalf of the dead. They advocate a strict sexual morality, large families, and respect for authority. The consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea, and tobacco is forbidden. Polygamy was officially practised until 1890, when the Church decided to conform to the law.

Origins Smith told of visions he had had in 1820, when he was 15 years old, of God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son, and proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ restored to Earth. Three years later, after a series of other visions, he claimed to have received directions from an angel named Moroni to dig on a hill near his home, where he found sacred records that were written on thin golden plates bound together with wire. They had been written in ‘reformed Egyptian’ by the prophet Mormon, had been hidden by his son Moroni, and gave a history of religion in the American continent from the time of Babel down to the 5th century. They described American Indians as descendants of ancient Hebrews who came to North America across the Pacific. Jesus was said to have appeared to them after his ascension to establish his church in the New World. Smith was able to translate this work with the aid of the sacred stones Urim and Thummim, which were also given to him. The translation is known as the Book of Mormon and it was published in 1830. After it had been made, the plates and sacred stones were said to have been returned to the angel Moroni from whom he had received them.

In 1829 Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery claimed to have received the divine authority of the office of priesthood, lost to the world since early New Testament times. In 1830 they founded the Mormon sect, called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and began to bring others into the faith at once. In 1831 they moved to Kirtland, Ohio; in 1833 Smith became first president; and in 1835 twelve apostles were appointed.

Conflicts and settlement In 1837 a bank founded by Smith at Kirtland failed. The Mormons were forced to move on to Jackson County, Missouri, where a branch had already been established. Again, however, the Mormons came into conflict with the local inhabitants, and during the winter of 1839 they were driven away, founding a new settlement in Illinois which they called Nauvoo, a Hebrew word for beautiful and restful place. The town grew quickly, soon reaching a population of 15,000. It was here, in 1843, that Smith is said to have received a revelation about ‘plural marriages’ (polygamy), which gave Mormon men the divine right to have more than one wife. The practice split the church, and some of those who turned their back on Smith and his beliefs started a newspaper, in which they printed their thoughts and opinions. Smith tried to destroy the newspaper presses, and the owners brought in outsiders to arrest him. In 1844 he and his brother Hyrum Smith were imprisoned in Carthage for violating the US Constitution, and in June they were lynched by a mob of over 200 anti-Mormons, when they were shot and killed.

Brigham Young, once a house painter and decorator, succeeded as president. He realised immediately that the Mormons would have to leave Nauvoo and move to a more remote area. Young led the main body of Mormons 2,250 km/1,400 mi westward to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847, and declared it the Promised Land. Over the next 20 years, the group built the large, modern town of Salt Lake City, with an impressive irrigation system and a new temple.

Most of the Mormons that remained in the Middle West (headquarters in Independence, Missouri) accepted the founder's son Joseph Smith (1832-1914) as leader, and adopted the name Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 1997 the Mormons had 56,000 missionaries working in 161 countries worldwide. According to the Mormon authorities, the membership of the Church reached 10 million in November 1997.