Behind the scenes with the Kirtland Temple transfer

In February 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball sent two emissaries to Independence, Missouri, to ask if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could acquire the Kirtland (Ohio) Temple from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

RLDS President Wallace B. Smith — the great-grandson of Joseph Smith — told Bishop H. Burke Peterson, then first counselor in the Latter-day Saint presiding bishopric, that he could think of no reason why the RLDS church would relinquish the temple, according to an entry in the journal of Elder Graham W. Doxey, a General Authority Seventy, who accompanied Bishop Peterson.

That position endured for 40 years, according to a BYU Education Week presentation on Tuesday by David Channer, associate general counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He revealed that the two churches signed a letter of intent in 2019 to transfer ownership of the Kirtland Temple, but the attempt faltered.

In his Education Week presentation, Channer described some of the behind-the-scenes legal work done after the effort was rebooted in 2023, finalized and then announced in March, when the Church of Jesus Christ acquired the temple and other assets for $192.5 million from the Community of Christ (the modern name for the RLDS church).

President Russell M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ directed the Latter-day Saint efforts to acquire the temple. Those efforts involved the Presiding Bishopric, church historians and many others. Channer shared a part of the legal work done.

Elder Kyle S. McKay, the Latter-day Saint Church Historian and Recorder, and other historians described in March how the heavenly visitations to the Kirtland Temple by Jesus Christ, Moses, Elijah and Elias in 1836 provided priesthood authority that became the underpinnings for the Church of Jesus Christ’s doctrines about eternal families, beliefs not shared by the Community of Christ.

The Kirtland Temple, then, and the authority provided there, is part of what gives “us hope, those of our faith, of eternal life and family life,” Channer said.

For that reason, he added, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life as a lawyer.”

The ‘murky’ property title to the Kirtland Temple

The Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ share a common history from the legal formation of the Church of Jesus Christ in 1830 to a year after the murder of Joseph Smith in 1844. The Kirtland Temple, completed in 1836, is the first temple in the history of both churches.

Ownership of the Kirtland Temple became an issue almost from the start. The title was broken more than once in the 1830s, Spencer McBride said in a Joseph Smith Papers Project podcast. For example, he said title to the temple once was conveyed to Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma Smith, but it was unclear if it was to them as individuals or as trustee-in-trust for the church.

“It’s a murky title,” Channer said.

Other experts have described the problems. Elizabeth Kuehn, a historian and editor on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, described in a separate Education Week session this year how Joseph Smith was deeply in debt due to construction costs for the temple and the 1837 failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, a bank formed by Latter-day Saint leaders at the start of that year.

Church leaders secured a five-year mortgage on the temple from Mead Stafford and Co., which agreed to forgive a $16,000 debt, Kuehn said. Joseph Smith and the majority of the Latter-day Saints left Kirtland in 1838, but in 1839, he assumed all the debts on the temple in his own name.

After Joseph was murdered in 1844, the temple’s ownership was increasingly unclear and many groups used the building. A BYU Studies article said it wasn’t until 1860 that the probate court in Lake County, Ohio, decided the Kirtland Temple property should be sold to pay those debts.

Various transactions occurred in the years that followed with the president of the The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints acquiring ownership in 1873 and made attempts to satisfy claims. By 1901 the RLDS Church believed it had settled the ownership matter.

How the churches handled the title in the transfer of the Kirtland Temple

Channer said he approached Bishop W. Christopher Waddell, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, in early 2023 to check the status of the Kirtland Temple only to learn that the churches had scheduled talks on April 3. Negotiations continued until November 2023, when an agreement was reached.

The deal was signed by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ on Dec. 20, 2023.

The Community of Christ offered a quit-claim deed, but the Latter-day Saints had concerns about the title, said Channer, who said helping the Church of Jesus Christ ensure purchases are clear of ownership claims is one reason it has lawyers.

Eventually, each church agreed to pay a premium to a title company that agreed to assume the risks of possible future claims against the title. That way, the Latter-day Saints received a special warranty deed for the Kirtland Temple, which is better than a quit-claim deed.

“We believe the title issues vesting title in the Community of Christ were resolved years ago. Old Republic as a title company did an extensive review of the title issues and was comfortable the Community of Christ does hold legal title and as a result it was willing to stand behind the title, so they are the ones who facilitated the transaction. Old Republic Title agreed to step in and provide insurance and protect both sides from any other claims. They’re taking whatever risk exists, but all parties believe that is minimal. They took our premiums, and they issued policies to us and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Missouri Corp., so we were both protected should anyone come out of the woodwork claiming they owned the temple.”

Securing the materials to the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible

The two churches also finalized the transfer of many additional assets in March, including the materials Joseph Smith used in his translation of the Bible.

Those materials included the 1828 Phinney Bible, three Old Testament manuscripts, two New Testament manuscripts and documents from the 1867 RLDS Publication Committee.

That transfer was complicated because the Community of Christ had optioned those materials to someone else, granting that party the right to buy them for $25 million. The option had not expired in March, and the Latter-day Saints would not purchase them until that option was settled.

“It went right down to the wire,” Channer said, “maybe two weeks or a week before we closed, that the option resolution came through.”

The legal work to finalize the transfer

Channer also described how the transfer was finalized on March 4 and 5. On the first day, he and another Latter-day Saint attorney met in Missouri with the general counsel for the Community of Christ and representatives of the title company and reviewed all of the documents. The review took six hours.

When the meeting ended, the title company representatives left to prepare to file the titles for the exchanges of real property in Lake County, Ohio, and Hancock County, Illinois. The timing was crucial. Community of Christ had a meeting scheduled at 1:30 p.m. ET on March 5, and its leadership wanted to disclose the transfer then without it leaking beforehand.

“We had to have the deeds filed, not later than (the timely issuance of the press release),” Channer said, but not so early in the day that the transfer would leak. “So we didn’t want to file them at 8 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. when the offices first opened, because that would allow for too much time. If you walked in and handed to the Hancock County Recorder the deeds on approximately 30 different properties, we were afraid that word could get out, so we held them.”

When the titles were filed, Channer sent a note to President Nelson and his counselors in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

“Dear Brethren, I’m pleased to let you know the deeds have been recorded in both Kirtland and Nauvoo. The transaction is now complete. ‘Let the hearts of all your brethren rejoice, and let the hearts of all my people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to my name. (Doctrine & Covenants 110:6).

“I give heartfelt thanks to Heavenly Father and to the Savior that I have lived to see this day and to have been a small part of the larger team that has operated under the keys of apostles and prophets to bring this about.”

Channer said, as an aside, “I should mention that the title issues were only one set of legal issues the parties faced in nearly a year’s worth of negotiations. The legal team from Community of Christ were nothing short of complete and total professionals in every way. On the day of closing, we prayed together as legal teams before approving the final legal instruments and authorizing the transfer of funds.”

Channer said Tuesday, “It was the singular project of a lifetime for a Latter-day Saint lawyer.”