Due to current events in Europe, the British Pageant will be postponed until 2023, the Europe Area presidency announced in a letter sent to Church leaders in the United Kingdom and Ireland, according to a Monday, March 28, announcement on the Church’s U.K. Newsroom.
In the letter, the area presidency expressed love and gratitude to pageant leaders and volunteers who have already expended great efforts to produce a message of hope and faith in Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel.
“We now have precious additional time to consider how best we keep the torches burning through the wards, stakes and beyond,” British Pageant President Craig T. Wright said. “Through humanitarian service, media, community engagement and outreach, we will become instruments to help many more people to come unto Christ as we move forward.”
Many members of the Church across Europe have been volunteering in a variety of ways to help with the developing humanitarian crisis resulting in Eastern Europe from the current armed conflict.
Read more: What the Church is doing to help in Eastern Europe
The British Pageant was scheduled for August 2022 in England, and auditions and creating costumes had already started, according to the pageant’s social media posts.
For those who have already volunteered, their applications are still valid for 2023, according to a post on the British Pageant’s Facebook page.
The pageant reenacts the story of Heber C. Kimball and the first missionaries to England and early converts to the Church in England through words, song and dance.
The pageant was first performed in 2013 as a one-time event. It was later performed in 2017, and it was scheduled to continue every four years. President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who served as a mission in England, attended one of the performances. It was postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Nauvoo, Illinois, a British Pageant titled “Truth Will Prevail” is one of two pageants slated there for this summer. The Nauvoo Pageant, titled “A Tribute to Joseph Smith,” and the British Pageant are performed every other night on an alternating basis.
