Knights Templar Hid the Shroud of Turin

The Times reported earlier this year that the Knights Templar hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Fourth Crusade. The Vatican made the announcement in April, apparently clearing up the mystery where the shroud had been after the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The shroud, long revered as the shroud in which Jesus was buried, is now stored in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral. Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives, found a document in which Arnaut Sabbatier, a Frenchman who entered the order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times.

The Knights Templar had been accused of sodomy and worshipping idols, in particular a “bearded figure” - the Shroud. According to the Times,

They had rescued it to ensure that it did not fall into the hands of heretical groups such as the Cathars, who claimed that Christ did not have a true human body, only the appearance of a man, and could therefore not have died on the Cross and been resurrected. [Frale] said her discovery vindicated a theory first put forward by the British historian Ian Wilson in 1978...

Several knights, including the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, were burned at the stake. Legends of the Templars’ secret rituals and lost treasures have long fascinated conspiracy theorists, and figure in The Da Vinci Code, which repeated the theory that the knights were entrusted with the Holy Grail.

In 2003 Dr. Frale, the Vatican’s medieval specialist, unearthed the record of the trial of the Templars, also known as the Chinon Parchment, after realizing that it had been wrongly catalogued. The parchment showed that Pope Clement V had accepted the Templars were guilty of “grave sins”, such as corruption and sexual immorality, but not of heresy...

After the sack of Constantinople [the shroud] was next seen at Lirey in France in 1353, when it was displayed in a local church by descendants of Geoffroy de Charney, a Templar Knight burned at the stake with Jacques de Molay.

It was moved to various European cities until it was acquired by the Savoy dynasty in Turin in the sixteenth century. Holy See property since 1983, the Shroud was last publicly exhibited in 2000, and is due to go on show again next year.

Mysteries of Southern France

A website titled Mysteries of Southern France has pulled together information, artwork and photos of the Cathars, for instance:

The sacred caves of the Sabarthez cluster around the small resort town of Ussat-Les-Bains are known as 'doors to Catharism'. To reach Bethlehem, the most important of the Cave Churches of Ornolac, one must climb the steep Path of Initiation. The Cave of Bethlehem may well have been the spiritual center of the Cathar world. For it was here that the 'Pure' candidate underwent an initiation ceremony that culminated in The Consolamentum.

Four aspects of the Cave were utilized in the ceremony:

* A square niche in the wall in which stood the veiled Holy Grail
* A granite altar upon which the Gospel of John lay.
* A pentagram hewn into the wall.
* Telluric currents emanating from the rock walls and floor.

13th Century Chronology

Here's a 13th century chronology, including:

1203 Toulouse (Languedoc, France) agreed to persecute the Cathars.

1207 Pope Innocent III encouraged the nobles of the north of France to enter into a crusade against those of the south who gave support to the Cathars. He offered the same indulgences as were given to crusaders going to the Holy Land. The northerners also wished to enrich themselves with the southern nobles’ lands.

1208 Albigensian crusade (directed against the Cathars of the south of France) began, led by Simon de Montfort and the papal legate, Arnald of Citeaux . (The crusade takes its name from the town of Albi, but the heretics were centered southwest of there, near Toulouse.)

1213 Albigensian Crusade -- Catholic crusaders defeated the Cathari at Muret. The Cathari, numerous in the Languedoc region of France, were dualists, believing that Yahweh (the ruler of spirit) and Lucifer (of matter) were co-equal. In their view, the incarnation was an illusion, since matter is evil. The Cathars had two levels of perfection: for the perfecti, eating of flesh (or eggs) was forbidden, as was sexual intercourse. For the credentes, sexual immorality was permitted (or so their Catholic opponents claimed).

1226 Albigensian Crusade -- King Louis VIII (1223-26) of France led an army of crusaders into the south of France to crush the southern nobles. He captured Avignon. The southern nobles submitted, signed the treaty of Meaux (April, 1227), and agreed to persecute the Cathars. The Inquisition was established in Toulouse, Narbonne, and Albi, and many heretics were burned.

1232 The Lord of Perelle gave the Cathars of southern France Montsegur as a stronghold.

1240 A large number of Cathars burned at the stake in Milan.

1242 Cathars from Montsegur (France, see 1232) and Avignonet slaughtered a troop of Inquisitors who were on their way to the latter town.

1243/44 The Inquisition in southern France burned a large number of Cathar heretics, including several noblemen and women. Many Cathari fled to the Pyrenees, Lombardy, or Bosnia. The leaders concentrated at Montsegur. In March 1244 Montsegur fell, and thereafter about 200 of the Cathari leaders, known as “Perfects,” perished in the inquisitorial flames without trial.

This chronology also notes that the population of Rome never exceeded 30,000 during the 13th century.