Where are the Knights Templar today?

Eight years ago, I first blogged about where you can find the Knights Templar in the world today. I think it’s time for a thorough update. Today, there are over 1700 groups and organisations around the world calling themselves Knights Templar or Templars. They range from sensible and worthy bodies through to fringe extremists and even organised criminals. So – you have to tread carefully!

And it must be added that today’s Knights Templar can be a fractious bunch. There have been splits and fall-outs aplenty. But I think we can identify the genuine organisations and steer you away from some of the very dubious outfits.

Our starting point has to be the assumption that in 1307, the Knights Templar came to an end. The last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was burned to death in 1314 and with that, the Templars were no more. Well, not according to a lot of people out there. These include Roman Catholic and Freemason groups – but also charitable bodies that trace their lineage back to the knights.

Knights Templar today

Earlier this year, before the Coronavirus lockdown confined us to our homes for a while, I spoke at an event in Manchester organised by the OSMTJ Grand Priory of England Wales. In the photo below – I’m on the left, in case you didn’t know, and the Grand Prior, Mark Borrington, is next to me in the middle.

Now, I’m not affiliated to any group – as I know some of you will be trying to work that out. But the OSMTJ are a level headed group of people doing charitable work and I was happy to go to their event and talk about the Templars. They have a Grand Master who is currently Michel Van Der Stock, based in Belgium. Below him in the organisation is a Magisterium and then each region has its own Grand Prior.

The organisation is called the Ordre du Temple for short and its history goes back to the re-emergence of the Knights Templar in the French Revolution courtesy of a man called Bernard-Raymond Fabré-Palaprat (1773 to 1838). I’ve blogged about him in more detail before so search for my previous posts to get full details.

Fabré-Palaprat revealed an ancient document called the Larmenius Charter. This showed an unbroken line of Knight Templar Grand Masters from 1324 to 1804. The charter was named after a man called Johannes Marcus Larmenius who was named Grand Master by Jacques de Molay, the last visible Grand Master, before his execution in 1314. Larmenius in turn named his successor, Thomas Theobaldus Alexandrinus, in 1324. And he was the first to write his name down on the charter. After him, each master entered his details down to Fabré-Palaprat.

This document ended up in Freemason hands in the early 20th century and is now kept at Mark Masons Hall in London. These are the OSMTJ emblems for England and Wales below.

In the spirit of the French Revolution, Fabré-Palaprat wanted to establish a new religion. But also, in the spirit of Napoleon Bonaparte, the newly visible Templars also reached out to the Vatican for reconciliation. Their overtures were met with cool reserve. After all, the papacy had crushed the Knights Templar and admitting they’d done something wrong was probably asking too much.

Splits in the Templar world down to today

As the OSMTJ website and other sources point out – egos have got in the way of Templar unity. So, in the late 19th century, a Parisian gentleman called Josephin Paladin decided he could be both Regent of the Order of the Temple and Master of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. But it didn’t work out. And the leadership of the order moved to Brussels.

Then the Nazis invaded. The order’s entire archive was moved to neutral Portugal. The man entrusted with this wealth of information was Antonio Campello Pinto de Sousa Fontes – who proclaimed himself the new Grand Master. In 1948, he then did the unthinkable and declared that his son, Fernando, would be the new leader on his death. Well, the Knights Templar were never run on a hereditary principle so this caused a global fall-out among Templars that continues to this very day.

At a stormy meeting in Paris in 1970, a Polish Marshal called Antoine Zdrojewski was acclaimed as the new Grand Master – in opposition to the Sousa Fontes father and son in Portugal. They, incidentally, refused to hand over the Templar archives. Instead, they forced a split. The OSMTJ Templar priories accepted the Paris decision. While the OSMTH continued to recognise the Portuguese.

And so you can find the OSMTJ and the OSMTH websites if you go on Google. And now you know the heritage of these organisations. Both claim to be multi-cultural and in favour of inter-faith dialogue. They have attempted to reconcile over the last 25 years but instead, there have been further splits on both sides. However, the two groups were able to unite in condemning the 1990s death cult called the Order of the Solar Temple who I’ve also blogged about previously.

Dangerous Knights Templar organisations to avoid

Now, let’s leave the OSMTJ and OSMTH and other Masonic, Catholic, charitable and esoteric groups – and focus briefly on the darker side of the Templar universe today. And I would urge you all to keep away from the dark side!

Unfortunately, the terms “crusade” and “jihad” have been used and misused to devastating effect by people of violence and terrorists in our time. And this will continue to be a problem. I’m particularly concerned by people claiming to be Knights Templar infiltrating video game chat rooms to try and radicalise teenagers into hate crime. If you have kids and you don’t want them to grow up to be bigots – be aware this is going on.

I have been quoted in Wired magazine about my fears regarding a particular organisation I refer to directly calling itself the Knights Templar International and their online activity. This has nothing to do with the medieval knights I describe in this blog. If you wish to debate this – I’m all ears. This blog has never and will never endorse hate politics. If you think otherwise – you may be on the wrong blog.