A rendering of two far-flung temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been released. And the history of the church in each country is very different.
The Vienna Austria Temple will be the first temple in the country. The Culiacán Mexico Temple is one of 27 temples in various stages in Mexico. The first stake in Austria was organized in 1980, and the first stake in Mexico was organized in 1895.
However, once both temples were built, they would be given the same name: “House of the Lord.”
Renderings of these two sacred cathedrals were first published on ChurchofJesusChrist.org on Monday, March 23rd. See below for the history of these temples and the churches of Austria and Mexico.
Vienna temple and church in Austria
On April 4, 2021, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced that Austria’s first House of the Lord would be located in the capital, Vienna.
This is one of 20 temple locations he identified during April 2021 general conference, along with two other European temples in Brussels, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, both of which were the first in their respective countries.
As previously announced, the Vienna Temple is planned as a high-rise building measuring approximately 15,300 square feet. It will be built on a 0.80 acre site in Silbergasse 2, Vienna, Austria.
Of the 26 Houses of the Lord in various stages of operation, construction, and planning, three are currently in the construction stage: the Birmingham England Temple (groundbreaking March 2025), the Budapest Hungary Temple (June 2025), and the Brussels Belgium Temple (November 2025).
The Restored Gospel was first preached in Austria in 1865, but church growth was sporadic due to legal restrictions and conflicts, and the missionaries left later that year. In September 1955, Austria granted official government recognition to the Church.
The first stake in this country was organized in Vienna in 1980. The second stake was organized in Salzburg in 1997.
Currently, there are approximately 4,700 members of the Church living in 17 wards and branches in Austria.
Culiacan temples and churches in Mexico
President Nelson announced the Culiacan Temple during the 2021 October general conference on October 3, 2021. It was one of the 13 Houses of the Lord he announced in that environment, only four of which were in the United States.
As previously announced, Culiacan Temple will be a one-story building of approximately 10,000 square feet and will be located adjacent to the Guardian Housing building.
It will be built on a five-acre site off Avenida Millennium, between the Miguel Tamayo Espinosa de los Monteros intersection and Jose María Figueroa Díaz Boulevard in Colonia Country Tres Ríos.
Of Mexico’s 27 temples in various stages, 14 have been consecrated in Mexico City, Colonia Juarez, Ciudad Juarez, Hermosillo, Oaxaca, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Tampico, Villahermosa, Mérida, Veracruz, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana, and Puebla.
Three more locations are under construction in Torreon, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi.
In addition to the Culiacan Temple, other Houses of the Lord in the planning and design stages include the Benemerito Temple in Mexico City, the Cuernavaca Temple, the Pachuca Temple, the Toluca Temple, the Tula Temple, the Cancun Temple, the Chihuahua Temple, the Juchitan de Zaragoza Temple, and the Reynosa Temple.
Missionary work in Mexico began in 1875, when seven missionaries were sent to Mexico. The first five members in Mexico were baptized in Hermosillo, Sonora in 1877. A branch was soon established in Mexico City in 1879. The country’s first stake, the Juarez Stake, was established in 1895.
There are currently more than 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in nearly 1,900 wards and branches in Mexico.
