Crusaders sue the Pope
Telegraph, London
August 5, 2008
MADRID: The heirs of the Knights Templar have launched a legal battle in Spain against the Pope to salvage the reputation of the order accused of heresy and dissolved 701 years ago.
Members of the Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ claim that when the order was dissolved by Clement V in 1307 more than 9000 properties and commercial ventures belonging to the knights (worth $168 billion) were appropriated by the church.
"We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our order," the self-proclaimed modern-day knights said in a statement.
The Templars were a secretive group of warrior monks founded after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.
They spectacularly fell from grace after the Muslims reconquered the Holy Land in 1244 and rumours surfaced of their heretic practices: denying Jesus, worshipping icons of the devil in secret ceremonies and practising sodomy. Many Templars confessed under torture and some were burned at the stake.
Last October the Vatican released copies of trial records, one of which showed Clement V had declared the Templars were not heretics but disbanded the order to keep peace with their accuser, Philip IV of France.
August 5, 2008
MADRID: The heirs of the Knights Templar have launched a legal battle in Spain against the Pope to salvage the reputation of the order accused of heresy and dissolved 701 years ago.
Members of the Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ claim that when the order was dissolved by Clement V in 1307 more than 9000 properties and commercial ventures belonging to the knights (worth $168 billion) were appropriated by the church.
"We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our order," the self-proclaimed modern-day knights said in a statement.
The Templars were a secretive group of warrior monks founded after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.
They spectacularly fell from grace after the Muslims reconquered the Holy Land in 1244 and rumours surfaced of their heretic practices: denying Jesus, worshipping icons of the devil in secret ceremonies and practising sodomy. Many Templars confessed under torture and some were burned at the stake.
Last October the Vatican released copies of trial records, one of which showed Clement V had declared the Templars were not heretics but disbanded the order to keep peace with their accuser, Philip IV of France.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 10:36 PM
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