Church of Christ (Whitmerite)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search The Church of Christ, informally referred to as the Church of Christ (Whitmerite), was a denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement based on the claims of David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's Golden Plates.

There were actually two separate organizations of this church. In 1847, William E. McLellin, who led a congregation of Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, remembered that Joseph Smith, the movement's deceased founder, had designated David Whitmer as his successor. McLellin encouraged Whitmer to come forward and lead his church. Whitmer agreed and gathered others to his cause, including fellow Book of Mormon witnesses Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, Hiram Page and John Whitmer.

Taking the original name of the church, the Church of Christ published a periodical from Kirtland called, The Ensign of Liberty. Whitmer, however, never joined the main body of his followers in Kirtland and the church dissolved.