Ground will be broken for the Barcelona Spain Temple on Saturday, Sept. 19, announced the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder James W. McConkie III — a General Authority Seventy and counselor in the Europe Central Area presidency — will preside over the ceremony.
After it’s constructed, this will be the second Latter-day Saint temple in Spain and the first dedicated in the 21st century.
Information about the September groundbreaking was published Monday, Aug. 10, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
This year marks the 50th anniversary since the Spain Barcelona Mission was organized — back on May 8, 1976.
About the Barcelona temple, the Church in Spain
A few years ago, on April 3, 2022, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Barcelona, Spain. He identified 17 new houses of the Lord in April 2022 general conference, bringing the number of temples he had announced to that point to 100.
The Barcelona temple, as previously announced, is planned as a single-story building of approximately 27,500 square feet. Also planned for the grounds are patron housing, an arrival center and a distribution center.
This temple will be built on a 5.4-acre site northeast of the intersection of Avinguda de la Vía Augusta and Avinguda de la Clota in Sant Cugat de Vallès, a municipality north of Barcelona.
Spain currently has only one operating house of the Lord — the Madrid Spain Temple, dedicated in 1999. The Barcelona temple is the only other temple currently announced for the country.
Around 72,000 Latter-day Saints live in Spain, meeting in about 150 wards and branches.
The Church’s first converts in Spain were baptized during the 1950s and 1960s. In October 1968, the Church became legally recognized in Spain. On June 6, 1969, four missionaries arrived from the North Argentine Mission to begin missionary work in Madrid.
The Spain Mission was officially organized on July 1, 1970, and later renamed the Spain Madrid Mission in 1974. The first Spain meetinghouse built by the Church was dedicated on July 10, 1977, in Madrid, and the country’s first stake was also created in Madrid on March 14, 1982.
