According to the Church of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon temple may be getting built in Greater Victoria in the coming years.
The Mormon Church reportedly announced their intention to build a temple her at their annual general conference this year, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Victoria’s temple was among 14 other temples they announced they will be building.
According to the Church, this will be the 11th temple across Canada when completed and it will be just the second for BC.
In a media release, the Church of Latter-day Saints said that the first of their members, William and Maria Copley, came to Vancouver Island in 1875.
They came from the religion’s then-headquarters of Fillmore, Utah and claimed to have made their first Christian convert in 1887 when a member of the legislative assembly, Anthony Maitland Stenhouse chose to be re-baptized as a Mormon.
The Church says that now, they have around 2,000 members in Victoria alone and thus, the congregation requires a new place of worship.
One Victoria-based member of the Church, Christine Hitchmough, said in a release that she travels monthly by ferry to worship in the Vancouver temple.
“I can hardly wait to walk through the doors of the house of the Lord in Victoria,” she said.
The Vancouver temple was finished in 2010 and other Canadian temples are located in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax with a future temple in Lethbridge being announced in April of last year.
The specific location, or municipality they plan on building in around Greater Victoria has not yet been announced.
