This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Latter Day Saint Movement gathers three churches descended from the succession crisis that followed Joseph Smith's assassination in 1844, each formed by a different community that rejected Brigham Young's Utah leadership.
Community of Christ, known until 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, descends from the 1860 reorganization of believers who rejected both Young's leadership and the practice of plural marriage. It affirms the Trinity, ordains women, and is headquartered in Independence, Missouri, where its temple is dedicated to a ministry of peace and reconciliation.
The Church of Jesus Christ, commonly called the Strangite church after its founder James Strang, formed when Strang produced a letter he said Smith had written naming him successor, a claim the majority of the movement rejected in favor of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Strang led his followers to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, where in 1850 he had himself crowned king, making the settlement the only avowedly monarchist religious community in nineteenth century American history. He was assassinated by his own followers in 1856, but a small Strangite church has continued, chiefly in Wisconsin, to the present day.
Church of Christ (Temple Lot) organised in 1863 under Granville Hedrick, from Independence, Missouri believers who followed neither Young's majority nor the later Reorganization. It holds title to the original Temple Lot dedicated by Smith in 1831, a claim that became the subject of a nineteenth century lawsuit against the Reorganized Church, and it rejects the plural marriage and expanded temple ritual the Utah church later developed.