Historedia
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Conferral of the Aaronic Priesthood

When
May 15, 1829
Where
Harmony, Pennsylvania
Part of
Joseph Smith claims to receive the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist

Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery claimed to have received the Aaronic priesthood from John the Baptist on May 15, 1829, at Harmony, Pennsylvania.

According to Latter Day Saint belief, John the Baptist conferred the Aaronic priesthood directly upon Smith and Cowdery on May 15, 1829. A first-person account states that on the fifteenth day of May, 1829, the two were ordained under the hand of this messenger and baptized. The conferral is placed at Harmony, Pennsylvania, a borough in Butler County; Smith had moved to Pennsylvania in October 1827. The event is a religious claim rather than an established historical fact.

Sources

  1. Aaronic priesthood (Latter Day Saints) Wikipedia, revision of 2025-05-11
  2. Joseph Smith Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-29
  3. Harmony, Pennsylvania Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-21

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.