Behind the Temple Walls

To people of other faiths, the Mormon temple is an impenetrable place of mystery. Whether it is the Gothic-spired colossus in Salt Lake City, the bone white cruciform on Hawaii's Oahu island or any of the other temples that serve the 3.3 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the curious outsider invariably meets a closed door. Only Mormons in good standing can participate in the holy "ordinances" that are performed in the temple precincts, or even visit the rooms where they are performed.

Beginning next week, for a six-week period ending on Oct. 26, the non-Mormon public will have a rare chance to see the inside of one of the Saints' temples. The occasion is the opening of the church's 16th temple, a $15 million structure that rises spectacularly out of green woodland in Kensington, Md., near Washington, D.C. As with other temples before it, the Washington temple is being opened to visitors before its November dedication in part to dispel any suspicion of bizarre rituals inside.

The tours of the temple, which one Washington newsman has called "a bleached Emerald City of Oz," should certainly accomplish that. Although the exterior of the temple is striking--288 ft. tall from the ground to the tip of the Angel Moroni's trumpet and encased in 173,000 sq. ft. of gleaming white Alabama marble--the interior does not inspire awe. Divided into dozens of rooms on nine levels, the temple has nothing comparable to the great nave and towering sanctuary of a traditional Christian cathedral. Indeed, the Mormon temple is not built for regular worship (that purpose is served by thousands of local "ward" meetinghouses) but for "temple work"--the performances of various church duties and doctrinal study. To the outsider, its rooms seem to serve function rather than majesty.

The overall impression of the Washington temple, with its thick carpets, pastel velour upholstery and soft lights, suggests a posh hotel more than a church.

Yet the work that goes on in these comfortable surroundings is earnestly pious, a work that to Mormons quite literally cuts across centuries. Some of it is for the living, like the sealing of marriages for "time and eternity" to ensure that husband and wife will remain together after death. More often, though, the work is for the dead. Mormons devoutly believe that the dead who did not have an opportunity to do their temple work while on earth should be given the chance for the salvific rites after death; accordingly, they baptize, confirm and seal the marriages of ancestors for generations past and spend hours on genealogical homework to do so.

Some of the new temple's chambers:

A ROBING AREA, with ranks of lockers and dressing cubicles, provides a place where Mormons can change into (and even rent) the all-white clothing that they wear for temple work: shirts, ties, and trousers for the men, knee-length dresses for women. Near by is a bridal chamber where brides may rent wedding gowns from a showcase full of samples.

THE ENDOWMENT ROOMS, six small auditoriums set in a circle, are each equipped with an automatic movie projector, theater seats, an altar-like table and a screen. "Endowment" sessions (socalled because God is believed to endow a member with certain blessings there) include an audiovisual explanation of man's origin, purpose on earth and eternal destiny according to Mormon doctrine. Details of the two-hour session remain secret, but it has been compared with Masonic ritual, involving arcane symbols of the Mormon priesthood, ritual incantations and vows to lead a moral--and loyally Mormon --life. When the session ends, participants pass through a curtain to a two-story "celestial" room that stands at the hub of the six rooms and is supposed to suggest the serenity of heaven. Mormons can go through endowment sessions only once for themselves, but any number of times for the dead.

THE SEALING ROOMS, in various sizes and pastel hues, furnished with upholstered chairs and a central priedieu, are used by Mormons to seal their own or their ancestors' marriages, or in certain cases to seal children to parents. To remind those being sealed that the vows are forever, the walls are mirrored so that they can see themselves stretching off into infinity.

THE BAPTISTRY, a small room on the temple's lower level, is also its most arresting. It is dominated by a giant, cast-marble baptismal font resting on the shoulders of twelve oxen symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel. The baptismal area is the only part of the temple that after the November dedication will remain open to Mormons who are black.*

Undertakings like the new Washington temple demand considerable pocketbook enthusiasm from the average Mormon. Despite the fact that he must give the church a full tithe (10% of income before taxes), and other slices to the Mormon welfare program, the missionary fund and his local meetinghouse, the individual member is expected to ante up for any local building projects. For the Washington temple, church headquarters contributed $10.2 million in tithe money; local Mormons --among them Motelman J. Willard Marriott--raised the other $4.8 million.

It was Marriott who suggested that the new temple be painted into the background of the immense mural of the Second Coming in the ground-floor reception area. One Mormon asked Marriott if he meant to imply that the millennium would begin in Washington. "Why not?" he said with a smile. "What better place is there?"

* Blacks of African descent are not permitted to enter the Melchizedek priesthood that most other adult Mormon males achieve (and which is required, except for women and children, for temple admittance). Mormons believe that blacks are the descendants of Noah's cursed son Ham and his wife Egyptus, a descendant of Cain.

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