SALT LAKE CITY — On Saturday morning, President Russell M. Nelson announced an unexpected solemn assembly, accompanied by a sacred Hosanna Shout, to be held at the end of the Sunday morning session of the 190th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The last churchwide solemn assembly took place on March 31, 2018, when church members sustained President Nelson as the faith’s 17th president and prophet. Latter-day Saints are accustomed to participating in the Hosanna Shout at temple dedications.

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What is the Hosanna Shout?

It is rarer in recent church history to hold a solemn assembly or Hosanna Shout outside of those two settings, but one example was the Hosanna Shout held at the October 2000 general conference prior to the dedication of the Conference Center.

President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints demonstrates how to do the Hosanna Shout in the Sunday morning session of general conference on Oct. 8, 2000, prior to dedicating the new Conference Center in Salt Lake City. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News

President Nelson said the reason for Sunday’s event is to thank Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

“We will convene a worldwide solemn assembly when I will lead you in the sacred Hosanna Shout,” he said. “We pray that this will be a spiritual highlight for you as we express in global unison our profound gratitude to God the Father and his Beloved Son by praising them in this unique way.”

This general conference has a special focus on the bicentennial of the First Vision — the appearance in the spring of 1820 of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith. That visitation, during which the Father pointed to the Son and told Joseph to “hear him,” launched the Restoration expressed in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So, what is a solemn assembly? And what is a Hosanna Shout?

A solemn assembly is an ancient event found in the Hebrew Bible and describes significant gatherings. For example, it was during a solemn assembly that priesthood leaders dedicated the first temple in Jerusalem, according to a post by the church.

The Hosanna Shout has been called a “congregational shout of praise and rejoicing” by church historian Reed Durham. He wrote that the word “hosanna” originated in two Hebrew words and means “save us, we beseech thee.”

The Hosanna Shout is rooted in the Bible and early Latter-day Saint history. Near the end of the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles practiced in the Old Testament, for example, a trumpet sounded and all the people waved their branches of palms, myrtles and willows and shouted hosanna many times.

The shout also is recorded as happening six times in the Gospels in the New Testament, including during the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem.

The people of Jerusalem participated in the Hosanna Shout during Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry into the city. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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In 1829, according to Latter-day Saint scripture, Jesus Christ commanded Martin Harris to “preach, exhort, declare the truth, even with a loud voice, with a sound of rejoicing, crying — Hosanna, hosanna, blessed be the name of the Lord God!”

The first Hosanna Shout by a large Latter-day Saint gathering happened at the 1836 dedication of the Church’s Kirtland Temple. The congregation shouted three times: “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna to God and the Lamb, Amen, Amen and Amen!”

That wording continues during the Hosanna Shout today.

President Nelson said Sunday’s Hosanna Shout during the solemn assembly would include the waving of white handkerchiefs, a tradition that began with the 1892 capstone ceremony of the Salt Lake Temple. He said those who do not have a clean, white handkerchief may wave a hand.

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