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Knights Templar bury the hatchet with Rome. Whatever next? An apology to Islam, perhaps.
From Hilary Clarke in Rome
ALMOST 700 years after a papal decree denounced them as heretics the modern fraternity of the Knights Templar is mending its fences with the go man Catholic Church.
Last week, in a church tucked behind the Colosseum, the first Knights Templar ceremony to be presided over by a Catholic priest in Rome for 522 years took place.
Although claiming links with the famous warrior monks who spread fear across the Holy Land during the Crusades, the modern Knights Templar is these days Bent more on charitable works. Most of the people attending the ceremony in Rome last week were middle-aged professionals, an assortment of doctors, lawyers and policemen. Although they still don white cloaks with a red cross, and use swords in their ceremonies m symbolise then warrior spirit, the Templars are also considering; issuing an apology to the Islamic world for the excesses of the medieval Crusades to reclaim Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The pope has already issued such an apology on behalf of the Catholic Church.
"We are developing a structure for dialogue and are looking for a reconciliation with Islam, given that there is only one God," said Salvatore Bruno, a senior policeman and the Media officer for the Italian branch of the order.
Although in Europe they lived the pious lives of Monks, they built up vast riches from pillaging during the Crusades and from the farms they owned in Europe.
Within two centuries they had become rich and powerful enough to defy all but the Pope himself, and are credited with issuing the first European single currency and inventing Modern banking.
But the order fell foul of Philip IV of France, who resented their economic strength, and in 1307, with the blessing of Pope Clement V, he had them all arrested.
The crackdown started on Friday October 13, 1307, a date that is said to have given rise to the Friday 13 bad-luck superstition across the Christian world. Two thousand knights were killed in an attempt to obliterate the order. It was revived in the 18th century as part of the Masonic movement, which is said to have inherited the Knights Templar's secret rituals.
In the early 1300’s many Knights Templars fled to Scotland, where they built churches and abbeys and helped their protector, Robert the Bruce, fight the English.
They built the Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh, where they are said to have buried many of their secrets- including, some say, the Holy Grail and in 1398 Earl Henry Sinclair voyaged from Orkney to Nova Scotia under the Templar flag.
Speaking after last week's ceremony in Rome, wearing the white cloak of the old crusaders, Don Angelo, the priest who presided over the ceremony and who is also chaplain to the Italian state police, said that he was "happy to be useful in a different way. For me it was another opportunity to carry the word of Christ".
Improvements in the relationship between the knights and the Holy See have been helped by last year's discovery of a document in the Vatican archives that proved most of the accusations against the knights, including charges of homosexuality and devil-worship, had been concocted. Pope Clement V agreed to their suppression only under pressure from the French king, and privately forgave the Templars.
Many groups, from the Freemasons* to the cult of the Solar Temple,** have claimed the Templars as ancestors, but the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani (OSMTH) is the only Knights Templar organisation recognised by the United Nations. It has a growing membership of between 5000 and 10,000, more than five times as many as it did during the Crusades.
Multi Templi Scotia, the Scottish branch of the order, now includes people of all denominations. James Ritchie, Grand Herald of the order, said he would welcome both improved relations with the Catholic Church and an apology to the Islamic world for the Crusades. "I would be in favour of anything that gives us greater understanding of different religions and people," he said.
Any attempt to issue an official apology for the crusades will, however, be fraught with political difficulties, not least because of the different beliefs of members of the order in different countries.
The grand commander of the US order; James Carey, was a rear- admiral in the US Navy during the first Gulf war. He served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, father of the present President Bush, and has been an outspoken supporter of the current administration in this year's war against Iraq.
Sunday Herald 29th June 2003
*In order to avoid confusion it is made clear here at ‘the Freemasons’ have their own Knights Templar organisation - the Great Priory of Scotland founded in the 18th century. **This was a religious cult had had nothing to do with Freemasonry.
Knights rider
YOUR article on the Knight's Templar quotes a number of theories from alternative history books which are, in fact, utter nonsense (News, June 29). The question is: should we abandon any search for historic truth if the lie is sexy? There is actually no evidence that refugee Templar knights fled from France to Scotland. No churches were built by the order after its destruction. The Scots under Bruce were perfectly capable of fighting the English without non-existent French Templars galloping in to save them. Rosslyn Chapel was built about 150 years after the destruction of the Templar order. It was paid for by the St Clair family. This family were not Templar, had no esoteric secret Templar knowledge, and did not support "refugee Templars". It is a historical fact, recorded in contemporary manuscripts that members of the St Clair family testified against the Templars in Scotland when the order came to trial at Holyrood in 1309. It is time that these conspiracy theories were finally dismissed and certainly not repeated in print.
Mark Oxbrow, Edinburgh.
Great Priory of Scotland
The reader may wish to know that the Masonic Knights Templar have their own website and we think that it is rather good. To go there click on the image below.
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