Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several groups following different leaders; the majority followed Brigham Young, while smaller groups followed Joseph Smith III, Sidney Rigdon, and James Strang. Most of these smaller groups eventually merged into the Community of Christ, and the term Mormon typically refers to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as today, this branch is far larger than all the others combined. People who identify as Mormons may also be independently religious, secular, and non-practicing or belong to other denominations. Since 2018, the LDS Church has emphasized a desire for its members be referred to as "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", or more simply as "Latter-day Saints".
Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects of the Latter Day Saint movement, although there has been a recent push from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to distance themselves from this label. A historian, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, wrote in 1982, "One cannot even be sure, whether [Mormonism] is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these."
In Mormonism, the restoration refers to a return of the authentic priesthood power, spiritual gifts, ordinances, living prophets and revelation of the primitive Church of Christ after a long period of apostasy. While in some contexts the term may also refer to the early history of Mormonism, in other contexts the term is used in a way to include the time that has elapsed from the church's earliest beginnings until the present day. Especially in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "the restoration" is often used also as a term to encompass the corpus of religious messages from its general leaders down to the present.
The First Vision refers to a theophany which Latter Day Saints believe Joseph Smith experienced in the early 1820s, in a wooded area in Manchester, New York, called the Sacred Grove. Smith described it as a vision in which he received instruction from God the Father and Jesus Christ.
The Church of Christ was the original name of the Latter Day Saint church founded by Joseph Smith. Organized informally in 1829 in Upstate New York and then formally on April 6, 1830, it was the first organization to implement the principles found in Smith's newly published Book of Mormon, and thus its establishment represents the formal beginning of the Latter Day Saint movement. Later names for this organization included the Church of the Latter Day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of God, the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Cumorah is a drumlin in Palmyra, New York, United States, where Joseph Smith said he found a set of golden plates which he translated into English and published as the Book of Mormon.
David Whitmer was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who eventually became the most interviewed of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates.
Joseph Smith Sr. was the father of Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Joseph Sr. was also one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, which Mormons believe was translated by Smith Jr. from golden plates. In 1833, Smith Sr. was named the first patriarch of the Church of Christ. Joseph Sr. was also a member of the First Presidency of the church.
Egbert Bratt Grandin was a printer in Palmyra, New York, best known for publishing the first edition of the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the churches of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Joseph Smith was an American religious leader and the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement whose current followers include members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Community of Christ, and other Latter Day Saint denominations. The early life of Joseph Smith covers his life from his birth to the end of 1827.
The Palmyra New York Temple is the 77th operating temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
View of the Hebrews is an 1823 book written by Ethan Smith, a Congregationalist minister in Vermont, who argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, a relatively common view during the early nineteenth century. Numerous commentators on Mormon history, from LDS Church general authority B. H. Roberts to Fawn M. Brodie, biographer of Joseph Smith, have noted similarities in the content of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon, which was first published in 1830, seven years after Ethan Smith's book.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in New York. New York was the boyhood home of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Much of the early history of the now-worldwide LDS Church is centered in upstate New York. The LDS Church was organized on April 6, 1830, in Fayette, New York under the name of the Church of Christ.
This is a chronology of Mormonism. In the late 1820s, Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, announced that an angel had given him a set of golden plates engraved with a chronicle of ancient American peoples, which he had a unique gift to translate. In 1830, he published the resulting narratives as the Book of Mormon and founded the Church of Christ in western New York, claiming it to be a restoration of early Christianity.
The Priesthood Restoration Site, formally known as the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site, is a historic site located in Oakland Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. Due to its historical significance to Mormonism, the site is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The site comprises property once owned, and lived on, by Joseph Smith and is the spot where Latter Day Saints believe the resurrected John the Baptist conferred the Aaronic priesthood upon Smith and Oliver Cowdery in 1829. In September 2015, the church dedicated the site, which includes a visitors' center and meetinghouse, monuments, and the reconstructed homes of Smith and the Hale family.
The Book of Mormon Historic Publication Site is a historic site located in the village of Palmyra, Wayne County, New York, United States. The historic site includes the E. B. Grandin Building and some neighboring structures. It was in the E. B. Grandin building that Egbert B. Grandin printed and sold the first copies of the Book of Mormon. Because of the building's historical significance to Mormonism, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased it in 1978. In the mid-1990s the church restored the Grandin building, while remodeling and adding to some neighboring structures to create a visitors' center.
Joseph Smith Jr. was an American religious leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religion he founded is followed to the present day by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the life and influence of Joseph Smith:
Lucy Smith Millikin was an American woman who was an early participant in the Latter Day Saint movement and a sister of Joseph Smith. She was the youngest child of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. Millikin joined the Church of Christ when it was organized in 1830, and then moved to Kirtland, Ohio with her family in 1831, where she assisted in the effort to build the Kirtland Temple. After fleeing persecution in Far West, Missouri, she settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. When baptism for the dead was first introduced into the church, Millikin was one of the first Latter Day Saints to participate in the practice. She then joined the Relief Society and served a mission with her husband, Arthur Millikin, in Maine. Millikin chose not to follow Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers west to Utah Territory, and was instead received into the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (RLDS) in 1873, though she never became very involved in the church. She died in Colchester, Illinois in 1882, at the age of 61.
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