Angel Moroni may soon regain his lofty perch atop the iconic Salt Lake Temple.
Crews were working Tuesday morning to return the repaired and restored golden statue back to its rightful place after an earthquake damaged it in 2020.
The removal was part of the temple’s planned renovation and seismic upgrade, but the quake that year “sped up the process,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, as the 5.7 magnitude temblor “shook the trumpet out of Moroni’s right hand and caused other minor damage.”
The statue was sculpted by Cyrus E. Dallin, who was not a Latter-day Saint, hammered out of copper and covered with 22-karat gold leaf. Weighing thousands of pounds, it was mounted on a granite capstone.
Most of the church’s temples across the globe have Angel Moroni statues. But more and more of its newer temples are being built without them.
Latter-day Saints believe that Moroni, the final prophet from ancient America in the Book of Mormon, visited church founder Joseph Smith in a vision and told him where to find gold plates that yielded the faith’s signature text.
Angel Moroni, as he was known, became the symbol of the “restoration” of Christ’s gospel, the harbinger with his horn sounding a clarion call of the last days.
This story is developing.
