Don't worry, you'll still get your chance to visit the Mormon temple. But the rare open house is delayed due to coronavirus.
Curious people eager to get their long-awaited chance to step inside the secretive Mormon temple off the Capital Beltway will have to wait a while longer.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had planned to open the iconic white-spired temple to nonmembers for visits, for the first time since 1974, this year from Sept. 24 to Oct. 31.
On Friday, the church announced that it will wait to hold the open house until a yet-to-be-determined date when the risk of spreading the novel coronavirus is lower.
The temple in Kensington holds a special place in the imagination of Washington-area residents, who on their commutes around the Beltway have likened it to Disneyland, the Emerald City of Oz (hence the "Surrender Dorothy" messages sometimes written on the nearby railroad bridge), and even heaven itself.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 224 temples around the world, including 96 in the United States, which are used for weddings and other ceremonies. While the church's regular Sunday services at meetinghouses are open to the public, the temples allow entrance only to baptized members of the church.
Whenever the church opens a new temple, however, it gives tours to the public before the building is consecrated. The church says more than 750,000 people took tours during the one-month period it was open in 1974.
The Kensington building recently closed for renovations, so the church will offer tours before consecrating it and closing it again.