A site dedication for the Brussels Belgium Temple, to be constructed in an existing metropolitan area building, will be held Nov. 22, commencing the temple’s construction phase.
This will be Belgium’s first house of the Lord for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Jack N. Gerard, a General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the Europe Central Area presidency, will preside over the ceremony.
Since the Brussels temple is being built in an existing metropolitan area building, no groundbreaking or turning of the soil will take place. The site dedication ceremony — to be held inside the building — will include a short program and dedicatory prayer.
Information about the upcoming site dedication was released by the First Presidency, according to an Oct. 20 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The Brussels temple is planned to be a multistory temple of approximately 25,500 square feet, according to previously released site plans. It will be constructed within an existing building at Avenue des Arts 52 in Brussels, Belgium. A meetinghouse and arrival facilities for the temple will be built within the building as well.
About the temple and Church in Belgium
The late Church President Nelson announced the first house of the Lord for Belgium on April 4, 2021. It was one of 20 temple locations he identified in April 2021 general conference, alongside two others for Europe — in Vienna, Austria, and Oslo, Norway.
The Church’s first missionary in Belgium, Mischa Markow, a convert from Turkey, arrived in 1888. Missionaries laboring in Switzerland and Germany were also soon sent to Belgium.
The Brussels Belgium Stake, the first in Belgium, was organized on Feb. 20, 1977. Today, nearly 7,000 Latter-day Saints reside in Belgium, with two stakes comprising the country’s 12 congregations.
A handful of other Latter-day Saint temples have been built from existing buildings. Like the Brussels temple, the multistory Manhattan New York Temple stands at the corner of a city block; it was built from an existing stake center. This temple is currently closed for renovations.
The Vernal Utah Temple was built from an existing tabernacle, and the Copenhagen Denmark Temple was built from a chapel. And the Provo City Center Utah Temple was rebuilt after the historic Provo Tabernacle was destroyed in a fire, giving the site a holy revival.
