Official church membership as a percentage of general population was 0.41% in 2019.[3] According to the 2014 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey, less than 1% of Pennsylvanians self-identify themselves most closely with the LDS Church.[4] The church is the 13th largest denomination in Pennsylvania.[5]
History
Membership in Pennsylvania
Year
Membership
1940
900
1960
4,600
1979
18,146
1989*
28,000
1999
37,749
2009
48,477
2019
52,290
*Membership was published as a rounded number. Source: Wendall J. Ashton; Jim M. Wall, Deseret News, various years, Church Almanac State Information: Pennsylvania[1]
Joseph Smith and other future members of the Church of Christ, the original name of the Latter Day Saint church founded by Smith, were baptized in the Susquehanna River in May 1829.[6][7]
A total of 12 congregations were organized in Pennsylvania in the 1830s, before members gathered to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.[8]
In 2016 Inga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, called the new Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple "the most radical work of architecture built in Philadelphia in a half-century ... because it dares to be so out of step with today's design sensibilities and our bottom-line culture." Estimating its cost as more than $100 million, she wrote that the temple was "the real classical deal" and "a bold incursion into the hierarchical fabric of Philadelphia".[9]
Stakes
A meetinghouse of the LDS Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As of January 2024, Pennsylvania had the following stakes:[10][11][12]
