The public is invited to visit the new Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple during a free open house that begins Friday and runs through Aug. 31, excluding Sundays, according to a news release issued by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The church considers the temple a house of the Lord and leaders say it connects visitors to the biblical record of Jesus Christ.
“When we read about Jesus teaching at the temple, this is a place where we also can come as Saints have for millennia to connect with the Father and His Son and to become better,” said Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman.
“This is a time when we open the doors wide to the public,” she said, “and we allow friends of the church to come in and to see this beautiful house of the Lord, and to learn a little bit more about what takes place in these sacred places of worship for us, and to be able to ask questions and to learn a little bit more about our faith and what we believe.”
The church released the first photographs from inside the temple with its news release.
No tickets are necessary for the public open house. Tours are scheduled daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. except Sundays.
Church leaders hosted a media open house on Monday.
“The temples, for us, are our most sacred place,” said Elder James R. Rasband, an assistant executive director of the Temple Department and General Authority Seventy. “They, literally in our mind, are the house of the Lord, and so we do everything we can to make them beautiful because we’re building to the Lord. And we believe when we enter it, we enter in his presence. And so, there’s not anything more sacred than that.”
He issued a direct invitation to all people to attend the open house.
“Come to the house of the Lord,” he said. “See this temple. It’s beautiful. It’s peaceful. It really is the beauty of the ordinances, and the chance to connect ourselves to the Savior, Jesus Christ. And for us, it’s to feel his peace. That is the real reason to come to the temple.”
President Russell M. Nelson announced the temple in April 2020. It was built on 5.8 acres at 2093 Powell Road in Cranberry Township with 32,240 square feet.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the temple in two sessions on Sept. 15, 2024, at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. EDT. The dedication will be broadcast to all meetinghouses within the temple district.
The new Pittsburgh temple is Pennsylvania’s second. The Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple was dedicated on Sept. 18, 2016.
The Pittsburgh temple will be the 196th operating temple of the Church of Jesus Christ. It will serve more than 29,000 church members in over 80 congregations. More than 53,000 Latter-day Saints in more than 100 congregations reside in Pennsylvania.
President Nelson announced a third temple for the state, in Harrisburg, in April 2023.
Pennsylvania played a significant role in the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Most of the Book of Mormon was translated in Harmony, Pennsylvania.