| The open house for the
Montreal Quebec Temple was held May 20th through 27th. The dedication took place in
four sessions on June 4, 2000, with the Temple open the following day for ordinance
work. The Montreal Quebec Temple is the 86th
operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The temple has
approximately 10,700 square feet of floor space and includes a celestial room, two
endowment rooms seating 40 people in each room, two sealing rooms, and a baptistry. The
exterior is Bethel white granite. The spire is topped by a gold statue of the angel
Moroni.
Early Church converts in Quebec in the 1830s eventually emigrated to
the United States to be with the main body of Church members, at first in Ohio or
Missouri, and later in Nauvoo, Illinois.
After the 1840s, little Church activity took place in
Quebec until the next century. In 1918 missionaries from the Eastern States Mission were
sent to Montreal.
In 1919 the Canadian Mission was established. Elders Guy V.
Cutler and Marvin Beckstrom were assigned to commence missionary work in Montreal in
October of 1919. A congregation developed in Montreal in the 1920s, with James McCance
serving as its president.
For many years, Montreal had the only congregation of the
Church in Quebec. In 1942 a church building on St. Joseph Boulevard was purchased from a
Protestant congregation. The building was renovated and used by several of the Church's
congregations until it was destroyed in a fire in 1979.
By the 1960s membership had risen sufficiently to form
several congregations. A French-speaking congregation was established in Montreal in 1961,
and some of the missionaries in the city began teaching the gospel in French. In 1969 a
congregation was also established in Quebec City.
In 1978 a French-speaking stake (a "stake" is a
group of congregations similar to a diocese) was created in Montreal. Two years later an
English-speaking stake was organized. In 1981 total membership in Quebec reached 3,246. By
1990 there were 6,800 members of the Church in Quebec. Today there are 8,500 Church
members in 27 congregations.
Plans for the Montreal temple were announced August 16,
1998, by the First Presidency of the Church. Groundbreaking services were held April 10,
1999. The temple will primarily serve more than 12,200 Latter-day Saints in parts of
Quebec, Ontario, Vermont, and New York. The Montreal Quebec Temple will be the sixth
temple of the Church in Canada
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