Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, Richmond

The Church of Christ was the original name of the Latter Day Saint church founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. Organized informally in 1829 in northwestern New York and then as a legal entity on April 6 1830, it was the first organization to implement the principles found in Smith's newly published Book of Mormon, and thus represents the formal beginning of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Smith and his associates asserted that the Church of Christ was a restoration of the 1st-century Christian church, which Smith claimed had fallen from God's favor and authority because of what he called a "Great Apostasy". After Smith's death in 1844, there was a crisis of authority, with the majority of the members following Brigham Young to Utah Territory, but with several smaller denominations remaining in Illinois or settling in Missouri and in other states. Each of the churches that resulted from this schism considers itself to be the rightful continuation of Smith's original 'Church of Christ', regardless of the name they may currently bear.