Apostasy
Apostasy means a falling away from the truth. In mormon doctrine, it is taught that after the death of Christ there was a Great Apostasy. This happened when all of the disciples were killed and the priesthood, or the authority to act in God’s name, was taken from the earth. For the next eighteen hundred years, men lived in spiritual darkness. However, in 1820, a fourteen-year-old boy, named Joseph Smith, had a vision in which he saw God and Jesus Christ. They told him none of the churches currently on the earth had the fullness of the gospel. Over the next several years, the Church was restored through Joseph Smith.
