Yesterday, the Church posted an image of the Holy of Holies in the renovated Salt Lake Temple. It was the first color image of the room (excepting the Stained Glass) that has ever been posted.
There were only a few images previously. The first two come from The House of the Lord from James Talmage:
Talmage described it: “The floor is of native hard-wood blocks, each an inch in cross-section. The room is of circular outline, eighteen feet in diameter, with paneled walls, the panels separated by carved pillars supporting arches; it is decorated in blue and gold. The entrance doorway and the panels are framed in red velvet with an outer border finished in gold. Four wall niches, bordered in crimson and gold, have a deep blue background and within these are tall vases holding flowers. The room is practically without natural light, but it is brilliantly illumined by a large electrolier and eight side clusters of lamps. The ceiling is a dome in which are set circular and semicircular windows of jeweled glass, and on the outer side of these, therefore above the ceiling, are electric globes whose light penetrates into the room in countless hues of subdued intensity.”
In addition to the stained glass dome, there is a large stained glass panel of the First Vision. This panel was copied for the Salt Lake Seventeenth and Second Wards (in a much larger and grander fashion).
A colored photo of this window was taken for and shown in BYU Studies:
But the image published to President Dallin H. Oaks' social media showed the room (a small portion, including the window) in color, as well as the anteroom that leads to it:
The Holy of Holies is accessed off of the Celestial Room, between the Sealing Rooms. Between the set of sliding doors is this small anteroom with six additional steps, flanked by hand-carved balustrades. Their newel posts on the top have bronze figures symbolic of innocent childhood, holding flowers clusters that each have an electric bulb inside. At the end of these stairs is a second set of sliding doors leading to the Holy of Holies itself. The second set of sliding doors are symbolic of the veil from the Biblical Tabernacle and Temple.
The Holy of Holies room serves two purposes. One is for the President of the Church to have a private place to approach God in prayer. The second is to administer the Second Anointing, a less well-known, sacred temple ordinance that has been administered in the Church since Joseph Smith. Similar to the LDS initiatory, which involves anointing, this ordinance carries with it the promise of being set apart as a King or a Queen in God's kingdom. The architecture references this--on either side of the mirror, above the panels, are depictions of a crowned man.
A common question is whether other temples have a Holy of Holies. The answer is yes and no. Each temple has a sealing room that can serve as a Holy of Holies, more commonly for the administration of the second anointing. This ordinance is not only administered in Salt Lake.
In early pioneer temples, sometimes this room is identifiable by its unusually ornate or beautiful architecture, such as in Manti:
More commonly, in current temples, there is always one sealing room that has access to a small closet with a sink, since water is used for part of the ordinance. Other than this small closet, the sealing room is usually identical to others, but there is a space that can be used.
I thought it was thrilling to see a color image of this beautiful, sacred space. I am skeptical as to whether it will be a part of the open house tour--not so much because it is too sacred to be seen, but because it is such a small, tight entrance to a small space, I think it would be difficult to manage the flow of visitors. (We often see temples leave out these cramped areas from tours because of the logistics of managing the crowd.)
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