The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released dedication and open house dates for the Richmond Virginia Temple and the rededication and open house dates for the Columbus Ohio Temple.
The dates — in 2023 — for the two temples were published Monday, Nov. 14, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Additional details about the dedication and rededication will be announced at a later date.
Richmond Virginia Temple
Open house activities for the Richmond Virginia Temple run from March 20 through April 15, beginning with a March 20 media day, followed by invited guests touring the temple March 21-24. The public open house runs from Saturday, March 25 through Saturday, April 15, excluding Sundays and the April 1-2 weekend for April 2023 general conference.
President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, will dedicate the Richmond temple on Sunday, May 7, in two sessions, at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. local time. All units in the temple district will receive broadcasts of the dedicatory sessions.
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Richmond, Virginia in April 2018 general conference, with ground broken two years later in April 2020. It will be the first temple in the state, which is home to more than 96,000 Latter-day Saints in over 215 congregations.
Located at 10915 Staples Mill Road in Glen Allen, Virginia, the new temple will serve Latter-day Saints from Virginia, the eastern part of West Virginia and the northeastern part of North Carolina.
The temple is a two-story building of a little more than 36,000 square feet. A 16,000-square-foot meetinghouse also was built on the property adjacent to the temple.
Columbus Ohio Temple
The open house period for the Columbus Ohio Temple will begin with an April 24 media day, followed by private sessions April 25-28. The public open house begins Saturday, April 29, and runs through Saturday, May 13, excluding Sundays.
The temple will be rededicated on Sunday, June 4, in two sessions — 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. local time — with President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, presiding at the rededication. Dedicatory sessions will be broadcast to all in that temple district.
The announcement of the Aug. 15, 2020, closure of the Columbus Ohio Temple for renovations came on March 27, 2020, two days after the First Presidency closed all temple operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Columbus temple, which stands some 150 miles south of Kirtland, Ohio, was dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinckley in September 1999. Kirtland is where early Latter-day Saints dedicated the first temple of the modern era in 1836, having to abandon it two years later. The Community of Christ currently owns and operates the Kirtland Temple.
Situated in a wooded area with an adjacent meetinghouse in the Columbus Ohio Stake, the Columbus temple is known for its white marble exterior, which originally was pulled from a quarry near the birthplace of the Prophet Joseph Smith in Vermont.
President Hinckley announced the Columbus Ohio Temple in April 1998; it was dedicated in September of the following year. A second Latter-day Saint temple was announced for Cleveland, Ohio, by President Nelson in April 2022 general conference.
More than 63,000 Latter-day Saints in nearly 130 congregations reside in Ohio.
Note: An earlier version of this article included a dated exterior rendering of the Columbus Ohio Temple. Also updated on Feb. 21, 2023, are the number of dedicatory sessions and times for the Richmond Virginia Temple and the assigned presiding Church leader. Also updated are the number of rededicatory sessions and times for the Columbus Ohio Temple.
