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Religion
Mormon faithful mark anniversary
Associated Press
Published December 24, 2005
SHARON, Vt. - Faithful Mormons on Friday celebrated the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the fastest-growing religions in the world.
The cross-country commemoration was scheduled to include a 90-minute satellite broadcast to 160 nations from the Smith birthplace monument, dedicated here 100 years ago. Church President Gordon B. Hinckley was to make the closing remarks.
A simultaneous celebration at the church's Salt Lake City conference center was expected to draw a capacity 21,000-person crowd and feature a performance by the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Joseph Smith founded the church in 1830, 10 years after he claimed to experience a vision of God and Jesus in a grove of trees near his family home in Palmyra, N.Y.
He also said an angel named Moroni led him to a set of buried gold plates that contained the ancient records of Christ's dealings with the inhabitants of the Americas. Smith's translation of the plates became known as the Book of Mormon, the text on which Mormons base their religion.
Smith's original church had just six members, mostly his family, and only 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon were published at first. He sent out a handful of missionaries.
Today Mormonism has more than 12-million members - half of them outside the United States. Some 130-million copies of the Book of Mormon are circulating in 77 languages.
[Last modified December 24, 2005, 01:10:16]
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