Rome Italy Temple Receives Angel Moroni Statue
The LDS Rome Italy Temple, scheduled to be completed in 2018, is progressing towards completion. Its construction began nearly seven years ago, on October 23, 2010. And now, on Saturday, March 25, 2017, it reached a new milestone by receiving an angel Moroni Statue.
The angel Moroni is a prophet from the Book of Mormon. In our time, a statue of the angel with his trumpet symbolizes the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ. These 13-foot statues are almost always placed on top of temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Alessandro Dini Ciacci, of the Area Seventy in part of Europe, said, “Today we witness the tangible progress being made on the construction of the Rome Temple. We rejoice in this great milestone, conscious that as the workers will do their best to complete the construction as fast as possible, we will need to work alongside them to complete our spiritual preparation so that when the temple is dedicated we will be ready to participate in the sacred ordinances which will be performed there.”
“The eternal city is known for its history, its beauty and as a place of worship and faith. We are so pleased to add our sacred temple to this Christian tradition,” commented Elder Larry Wilson, executive director of the Temple Department for the Church, on this historic day.
All of the statues of the angel Moroni are gilded with 22-karat gold leaf before being placed atop the temples. In order to avoid damaging or marking the delicate gold surface, workers only touched it with gloves. Then, before setting in permanently in place, the crew used a crane to lift the large statue more than 150 feet in the air, and slowly lowered it to its final resting place atop the holy temple of our Savior Jesus Christ.
The general public will be allowed to tour the finished temple and its surrounding grounds during an open house before it is dedicated. When it is completed and finally dedicated, the Rome Temple will serve more than 25,000 members of the Church living in Italy and in neighboring countries.
