Series to review LDS history in Eastern Europe

KIEV, Ukraine — During the Cold War era of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the idea of an LDS Church temple in the Communist-ruled countries of eastern and central Europe seemed distant and impossible. So much so that the Mormon faithful would quip that the Savior's Second Coming wouldn't happen until there was a temple behind the Iron Curtain.

Then came the Freiberg temple, dedicated in 1985, in the heart of the former German Democratic Republic.

After that, the phrase was altered to "until there was a temple in the Soviet Union."

And in the wake of glasnost and perestroika — Russian words used to describe openness and transparency in the USSR's government and a confidence in the development of government — over the following half-dozen years, the Soviet Union ceased to be.

Last weekend, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated its Kyiv Ukraine Temple — the first within the borders of the former USSR.

Ironically, it comes exactly 25 years after the church's Freiberg temple.

It's not the church's only noteworthy 2010 anniversary in former Communist nations. Twenty years ago, LDS Church missions were opened in Warsaw, Poland; Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) and Budapest, Hungary. And the church created its first branch in the Soviet Union in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia).

Deseret News staff writer Scott Taylor joined Church News editor Gerry Avant in coverage of the Sunday, Aug. 29, temple dedication and related weekend events in Kiev. In addition, Taylor is traveling to a number of neighboring central and eastern European nations, visiting with longtime members and church leaders about the LDS Church's presence in this areas during the Cold War era and its growth since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the region's Communist regimes.

A series of Deseret News reports over the next several days will look back at missionary efforts in the area in the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the renewed efforts in recent decades. They will review the roles of past and present LDS Church leaders and the impact of having a temple in East Germany and missionaries crossing over into the likes of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland in the late 1980s.