By Catherine Brown
catherine@newsroom.byu.edu
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' 100th temple will open for public tours today in Boston.
Kim Farah, media manager for the church's public affairs department, said the dedication of the temple will fulfill LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley's April 1998 General Conference wish to have 100 temples in operation by the year 2000.
Farah said the 70,000 square-foot Boston Temple is on a seven-acre site in Belmont, Mass. The building has an exterior of Italian white Olympia granite and large oval stained glass windows. The temple cost $30 million to build.
Farah said the Boston Temple will be lacking one notable part of its architecture at the open house.
An angel Moroni.
The church planned to place a statue of the angel on top of a 139-foot steeple. However, zoning laws prohibit buildings taller than 72 feet in the neighborhood, Farah said.
The local court ruled against the church on their disputation of this matter, with the judge ruling the steeple a matter of aesthetics instead of religious symbolism. The church is now awaiting an appeal on the matter, she said.
And until the appeal is ruled on, the steeple will remain capped at 72 feet, Farah said.
The height of the steeple is not the only litigation involving the Boston Temple.
The Dover Amendment allows religious organizations to build in residential areas, but residents in the Belmont area dispute this in the matter of the LDS temple.
Farah said the LDS Church built the temple according to the law, but said other people in the area feel differently. The matter has been brought to court twice, and the rulings have been in favor of the LDS Church.
This is not the only time the LDS Church has had legal problems over temple construction.
Farah said that from time to time the church has considerations to take care of in some areas.
'It's just normal every time you're proposing a major construction project,' she said. 'The church abides by every zoning law.'
But even with the capped steeple awaiting an appeal, the Boston Temple opens for use Oct. 2.
The temple will serve 21,000 Church members in Massachusetts and surrounding states.
Farah said tours for the Boston Temple start today and run through Sept. 23, with a break between Sept. 5 and 8 and a half-day of tours on Sept. 17. Tours will not be given Sundays.
The temple will be dedicated Oct. 1, and will open for use Oct. 2.
Two other LDS temples are hosting tours this month. The Birmingham Alabama Temple and the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple are completed. Tours are now given daily until their dedications on Sept. 3 and 17, respectively.
Clark Hirschi, with the church's public affairs department, was in the Dominican Republic for initial media tours and the first day of public tours at the temple in Santo Domingo. The temple opened public tours Saturday.
Hirschi said each temple dedication is unique in its public response. He said the public support for the temple in Santo Domingo has been wonderful.
'There has been a very rich and warm response. Some people coming in big trucks and buses - people coming from all parts of the island,' Hirschi said.
During one day of media and VIP tours, the area was threatened by Hurricane Debby. Hirschi said that despite this danger, people still came to visit the temple.
As it was, the hurricane went right around the area of the temple, Hirschi said.
Still, bad weather marred the days of the earliest tours. Despite this risky weather, the VIP tours even accepted people two hours after they were scheduled to stop admitting visitors, he said.
Public support for LDS temples was also noted at the dedication of the Houston Texas Temple.
Collins Steward, chair of the open house committee for the Houston Temple, said that approximately 25,000 to 28,000 attended the eight dedicatory sessions Saturday and Sunday.
Steward said a tremendous feeling and spirit attended the dedication.
'And of course having President Hinckley makes everything wonderful,' Steward said.
Steward also said the dedicatory sessions were received well by all visitors, as were the open house tours.
'Some came as far as Canada to see the temple. We had 110,000 go through the open house,' he said.
The Houston Temple opened as the 97th LDS temple on Monday for ordinance use.
The dedication of the Boston Temple will be the 32nd LDS temple dedication this year, and the 49th since President Hinckley's declaration in April 1998. Twenty-one more temples have been announced or are under construction.
Farah said she has not been notified of any new temples to be dedicated or announced before the church's next general conference Oct. 7-8 in Salt Lake City.