Updated Country Profile - Italy

Click here to access the updated Reaching the Nations country profile for Italy. The Church reestablished missionary activity in Italy in 1966, and today there are approximately 27,500 members nationwide. The Church has achieved significant progress with the establishment of stakes in the country and the dedication of the Rome Italy Temple in 2019. There were only three stakes in 2000, whereas today there are 10 stakes. However, the establishment of stakes has come at the cost of closing dozens of branches to establish larger congregations due to slow membership growth during this period. Consequently, the Church in Italy maintained a more widespread presence in the late 1990s than 20 years later even though Church membership increased by over 11,000 during this time. Nevertheless, the Church in Italy has many strong wards with as many as 150 active members today. However, the Church will need to reverse its trend of declining national outreach in order to achieve greater growth. See below for the Future Prospects section of this article:

The trend of decreasing numbers of congregations and missionaries during the past two decades has resulted in more limited national outreach. Although membership has matured in many areas, smaller cities and rural areas have seen little or no progress in the growth of the Church over the past two decades. Long-term growth and self-sufficiency of the Church will largely depend on increasing native-Italian missionaries, breakthroughs in outreach among Italians, and a sustained reversal of congregational declines. Some positive developments have occurred in lieu of the Rome Italy Temple announcement and dedication, such as increasing convert baptisms of full Italian families. However, the Church in Italy continues to struggle with a lack of progress among Italian members and expanding the Church’s outreach rather than consolidating it. With the entire country administered by stakes as of 2020, stake presidents may have better opportunities to identify cities and towns which appear favorable to begin member groups to help spur greater growth. In sum, future Latter-day Saint growth in Italy will strongly depend on the local Italian Church’s ability to be self-sufficient in leadership and missionary needs, and the mobilization of local members to take the lead to find, prepare, and fellowship new converts who develop a lifelong conversion to the Church.