Here is another installment on staircases in temples built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This time I'll be discussing celestial room staircases.
In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;
And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];
Doctrine and Covenants 131:1-2
Putting a staircase in the celestial room in a temple is such a great way to visually remind us of this principle. I've only seen a few such staircases. The most interesting ones are grand staircases leading to upper levels in a celestial room. I only know of two. Here are pictures of them:
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| San Diego California Temple Celestial Room |
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| Portland Oregon Temple Celestial Room Staircase |
I've never been in the San Diego Temple, but I love all the pictures I've seen of it. I like the balcony level and the interesting curves, particularly in the railing. I have been inside the Portland Oregon Temple once and it has a very classy, sleek, modern, luxurious look and feel. I like how the staircase uses glass (with an etched pattern). This keeps the room bright and light. The brilliant white stone also is stunning on the staircase. You enter the celestial room by walking under the middle of the staircase. You can enter the staircase on either side and they meet in the middle. The staircase leads to a mezzanine level with additional seating. This level has a door leading to sealing rooms and the "chapel" which is essentially an assembly hall.
Other temples have less grand, but still really nice celestial room staircases. Below are staircases in the St. George Utah Temple and Salt Lake Temple. Each leads to a sealing room. The Salt Lake Temple staircase has a statue of Cupid as a symbol of love on the bottom post.
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| St George Utah Temple (left) and Salt Lake Temple (right) Celestial Room Stairs |
There are other celestial room staircases that are essentially just exits, or sometimes small entrances to the rooms. These can be seen in the original Logan Temple, the Manti Temple, London England Temple, Bern Switzerland Temple, and probably a few others.
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| Manti Utah Temple Celestial Room |
Those are the celestial room staircases that I am aware of. Please comment and tell us about others I don't know about. I really love celestial room staircases. I wish there were more like San Diego and Portland which have the best ones, or even just ones like the St. George and Salt Lake temples have. Hopefully as more and more temples are built, staircases will be included in celestial rooms once again.
9 comments:
I believe that the Mesa Temple has staircases in it's celestial room leading to sealing rooms. Really quite nice.
If I remember right the Idaho falls temple has stairs like St George, not as tall, going up to two sealing rooms.
I think it would be net if a temple had after going through the veil a grand stair case leading up to the celestial room
I think some do have staircases used to enter the celestial room. If I remember correctly, that is how London is done. As for huge grand staircases leading into the celestial room, I am not aware of any.
I've been in Mesa and Idaho Falls and sadly I don't remember the stairs. I'll have to look when I visit again.
The LA Temple has a staircase in the celestial room leading to the sealing rooms too, but it is always roped off. You use the elevator right off of the celestial room to go to the sealing rooms now,
The San Diego Stair case is Amazing! Just like Portland you enter the room from behind the stairs. The room takes up the whole upper part of the east tower. The stairs go up the a landing that has the balcony but the stairs go up even more to the sealing rooms. I love all the symbolism in the San Diego temple. Noting was done with out meaning something.
There are not stairs in the celestial room in the Mesa Temple, I was there 2 days ago.
The Logan temple used to have a nice stair leading to the veil. Since the renovation I feel that the temple is awkward. Of course all of this was necessary because of the automation of the endowment and to accommodate the those with mobility issues.
Idaho Falls has a couple of steps up to two sealing rooms off of the Celestial Room, but I would not call them grand by any means. Whether they remain after the renovation remains to be seen.
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