Swiss Temple

Geschichte

The Bern Switzerland Temple is a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Though the building is located in Münchenbuchsee, its postal address is assigned to the neighboring municipality of Zollikofen. It was the first LDS temple to be built in Europe and the first to be built outside of the United States and Canada.The 7acre lot was selected in by LDS Church president David O. McKay and Samuel E. Bringhurst, then president of the Swiss-Austrian Mission. The architects were Edward O. Anderson and Wilhelm Zimmer. Groundbreaking and dedication of the lot were performed by David O. McKay on 5 August 1953. He dedicated the temple on 11 September 1955. The temple was known as the "Swiss Temple" until the current naming convention for temples was adopted in the late 1990s.The Bern Switzerland temple has four ordinance rooms, seven sealing rooms, and a total floor area of 35546sqft.The presentation of the Endowment was particularly challenging in this temple, because it was the first international one, requiring many different languages for its attendants. It was solved by using a film, dubbed in all required languages. Gordon B. Hinckley supervised the initial making of this film and was the person responsible for transporting the film to Switzerland. Since then all new temples have been equipped with recordings in lieu of live presentations by temple workers. Today, only the Manti Utah Temple and the Salt Lake Temple use live presentation instead of film.