Facts and Statistics

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Pennsylvania

53,025

Total Church Membership

1-in-

13

Stakes

10

107

Congregations

80 Wards
27 Branches

46

FamilySearch Centers

46

1

Temples

2

Missions

History

Two years prior to the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, Joseph Smith and Emma Hale Smith moved to a farm in Harmony, Pennsylvania (present-day Oakland), and lived in the home of Emma’s parents, Elizabeth and Isaac Hale. After a few weeks, Emma and Joseph moved to a cabin adjacent to the farm. In this cabin, with Emma sometimes acting as his scribe, Joseph Smith translated most of the Book of Mormon, a sacred scripture that Latter-day Saints view as another testament of Jesus Christ.

Latter-day Saints believe that on May 15, 1829, Joseph Smith and his fellow Church leader Oliver Cowdery were visited by John the Baptist and shortly thereafter by Christ’s apostles Peter, James and John, and that through these visitations Joseph Smith received priesthood authority to administer Christ’s church.

A total of 12 congregations were organized in Pennsylvania in the 1830s, prior to the gatherings of Church members to Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. One prominent congregation in Philadelphia, established by Joseph Smith on December 23, 1839, had more than 200 members before 1840, and 8 to 10 new members were baptized weekly. One of those baptized in 1840 was Edward Hunter, who later served as Presiding Bishop of the Church from 1851 to 1883. That same year Benjamin Winchester, the presiding Church leader in Philadelphia, began publishing a church periodical, the Gospel Reflector. Despite large-scale immigration to the West after the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, Philadelphia was the port of entry for many Latter-day Saint immigrants from Europe and the British Isles, and during the mid-1850s it flourished, due in part to the influx of converts.

Around the end of the 19th century, conferences of the Church in eastern and western Pennsylvania were organized. In 1904 members of the Fairview Branch built a stone meetinghouse in Waynesboro, the first Latter-day Saint structure in the state. In 1960, the Philadelphia Stake was organized, and in 1969, the Pittsburgh Stake was organized. The Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple was dedicated in 2016.  The state is currently home to over 53,000 Church members. Church members regularly engage in service in their communities, including helping clean up after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.