Talk:Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem

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1 Insulting
2 Wow.....
3 history of the order
4 Assertions in this Article
5 Like Penn and Teller so well puts it...
6 there are tons of statements in the article

[edit] Insulting

Listing the SMOM here is completely insulting. They have their own page and it is so flagrantly commercial to list it here that it is without a doubt an abuse. Is there no sense of ethics? Whatever happened to chivalry?

[edit] Wow.....

....I came here to find out what Wikipedia had on the SMOTJ, after the constant edit wars on the Templars page over them. This is totally POV and basically an advertising pamphlet for the organisation......I agree with the need for a rewrite, but it would take some time and research. Any volunteers? In the meantime, barring protest, I would propose the article be moved to the talk page as a POV entry (as even a common google search reveals most, including members of the SMOTJ, do not take the claims of Templar descent seriously).....DonaNobisPacem 08:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] history of the order

I have moved the history of the order to the talk page - it was as follows:

"The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem is an ecumenical Christian knighthood. Its roots stretch back to 1118 and the Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon, who aided pilgrims in their passage through the dangerous wilds of the Holy Land. The Temple was recognized as a religious-temporal order of chivalry at the Council of Troyes on January 31st, 1128. The rules and customs of the Knights Templar were supplemented by further precepts derived from the Benedictine rule, drawn up by Saint Bernard, first Abbot of Clairvaux. In his treatise De laude Novae Militiae St. Bernard emphasized the importance of the Templar's mission. To symbolize the purity of their lives, the chevaliers of the order were required to wear a white cloak by Pope Honorius II, who approved their recognition by the Council. In 1146, a red cross was added by Pope Eugenius III. In 1139, Pope Innocent II emancipated the Order from all temporal and ecclesiastical authority except that of the Supreme Pontiff himself in a Papal Bull, Omne Datum Optimum. The Grand Master was granted administrative powers, but remained obedient to the Pope in all spiritual matters. Special dignity and many honors were conferred upon the Order by the Church on June 15th, 1163 (Magnus Ordo in Ecclesia). The Order continues today as a secular order for those who would live the good example of Christian Faith and Life.

Although best know for their combat arms -- principally mounted knights (heavy cavalry), sergeants and men at arms (supporting infantry) -- the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem also developed engineering, architecture and maritime skills within the Order. This was not only combat engineering for siege warfare and bridge building, but is also seen today in their fortifications in the Levant, as well as in the Gothic cathedrals and in thousands of churches, built either by the Templars or with their aid, throughout Europe and the Middle East. Many place names containing the word "Temple" own their origin to a church built by the Knights Templar. To support their effort in the Holy Land they developed a naval force and international banking as a part of the Knights Templar logistics train. Knights Templar played a significant role in the establishment of the modern Scottish nation with Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn and in the fourteenth century North Atlantic explorations of Prince Henry Sinclair of Roslyn.

Jerusalem was lost in 1187, and the Templars took up positions at St. John of Acre, thence retiring, consequent to overwhelming Saracen pressure, to Cyprus after which the official Seat of the Order was placed at the Temple in Paris, sovereign territory of the Order, over which the King of France had no jurisdiction. Many Knights Templar returned to their own nations and countries, while maintaining their rule as a sovereign religious-temporal order of chivalry. By the end of the thirteenth century there were over nine thousand Templar Commandries. The riches of the Templars throughout France excited the cupidity of the King of France, Philip IV, who arranged to have Templars arrested on October 13th, 1307, and then to have Clement V (then living in "Babylonian Captivity" in France), publish a Papal Bull removing official Church sponsorship from the Order. The order was suppressed in France in 1312, but not abolished or dissolved in that the Pope declared that the Papacy did not have the right to abolish the Order by reason (among others) of its sovereignty. At this point, the Order reverted to its previous status as a secular-military order of Christian chivalry.

Historian Hilare Belloc, in THE CRUSADES, points out that the Holy Land and Europe lay in mortal peril from the Turks after the Byzantine defeat at Mazikert in 1071, and it was the Crusades which, in 1099, saved Christian Civilization from Turkish Islam, at least in Europe, and for nearly a century in the Holy Land. Knights Templar were major participants in that clash of cultures; they were the "few good men" who made a military contribution, and earned a lasting reputation, out of all proportion to their numbers. Although inadequate reinforcement of the Crusader states from Europe (with the failure to take Damascus) ultimately resulted in the loss of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Crusaders did buy time for Western civilization to develop the strength to withstand further onslaughts from the East"

This is very much disputed - it should definitely not be included in the article, without serious work on presenting an NPOV interpretation (see the reference to them at the knights templar page, under Self Styled Orders"). Most modern historians do not accept this version of the history; even many within the order itself do not take it seriously. DonaNobisPacem 06:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the content of the article. --Loremaster 15:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assertions in this Article

I've never had the confidence to work on the contributing side of Wikipedia, so at the moment I don't think it's appropriate for me to edit the article, just yet. However, I thought I'd point out what I think are problems. I'm sorry to pick this apart, but I'm not trying to start a conflict

Some of the assertions the article makes seem to be in error to me. The article notes that the SMOTJ does not have a royal sovereign "(obsolete concept in the age of democratic republics where the people are sovereign)." There are many states in which the people are not sovereign and are still democracies (Although, of course, not republics). Many/Most constitutional monarchies have fully democratic governments, yet still possess orders of knighthood with royal patronage. These monarchies still serve as the "fount of honour" in their respective nations; this article terms that practice outdated and obsolete. What justification is there to term this obsolete, when many important offices, not just in knightly orders but also in goverment, still entail oaths to the sovereign, in many different countries?

"Using the outdated concept of fons honorum, chivalric or military orders can only be defined by the swearing allegiance to a national sovereign in the form of a person holding that office. This concept became obsolete the moment that constitutional democracies came into existence because democracies of any classification derive their power and sovereignty from the people of the nation as a whole unit. Even a democratic constitutional monarch cannot be sovereign because democracy implies, by definition, the sovereignty of the people."

No, democracy does not, by definition, imply the sovereignty of the people. Constitutional monarchies invest all sovereignty in the monarch, who in turn delegates it to the government. The people, through elections, supply the government with a mandate, not sovereignty. For example, in Commonwealth Realms, the Queen is considered to reign but not to rule. The fact that she does not exercise direct political power does not change the fact that all political sovereignty is vested in her person.

"In the time before democracies, one rule had to be applied to chivalric and military orders; that no order could have multinational full membership. This is because swearing loyalty to one monarch inherently meant disavowing loyalty to any other monarch. Even today American citizens cannot swear allegiance to either a monarch or a foreign government without the risk of losing American citizenship."

The Knights Templar recruited members from all over Europe and (I believe) were not sworn to a specific monarch. The only person who held ultimate authority over them was the pope. I know that this article is supposed to be about the modern OSMTH founded in 1804, but it makes so many unsubstantiated references to events before then that this statement should be clarified. Also, what is the point of commenting on American citizenship laws? They are by no means universal, and many states allow dual citizenship, including, I think, the US.

"The Templars lost the patronage of the Catholic Church in the beginning of the 14th century and ceased being a religious order. But the Templars did not cease to be a military or chivalric order. Conversely, it also didn't mean that they were chivalric or military under the conditions of those times. Nevertheless, without exception, contemporary Templar groups are multidenominational"

The Templar did not simply lose the patronage of the Catholic Church in 1307. The Order was disbanded, many of its members and most of its leaders put on trial and executed. Yes, there are stories about secret groups of knights sneaking off to Scotland or even beating Columbus to the New World, but they're just that, stories. And yes, there are and have been many groups which claimed to be the true survivors of the Templar and present their own histories to prove it, but the history community has judged these to be fabrications. The reputation of the Knights Templar was so great that many have sought to emulate and imitate it in the centuries since its destruction, but they are not the same entities. The website of the OSMTH spells it out, they are founded on the IDEALS of the Knights Templar, they are LIKE the Knights Templar, but they don't claim that they ARE the Knights Templar of medieval times.

"However, with the advent of democracies in the Age of Enlightenment, the Templars were the first order, owing to the opportunities afforded by reconstitution, to accommodate this shift in governmental philosophy with a change in the concept of fons honorum. Furthermore, the world economic explosion that began with the Industrial Revolution shifted the need for patronage FROM organized religion and national government which monopolized the sources of support for these types of organizations before 1700, TO individuals who gained the capability of independently accumulating large sums of equity."

This just seems completely out of place. It's very much historically questionable, especially since the OSMTH wasn't founded until well after the beginning of the Enlightenment (And long after the Templar were wiped out). And 1804 is before the Industrial Revolution is commonly considered to have begun in earnest, so there weren't a lot of capitalists around to accumulate those large sums of equity.

"The contemporary Templars, therefore, democratized their administration, membership, and patronage long before any other order. The practice of true "sovereign" military and chivalric orders died a natural death with the Age of Enlightenment. However, there are Templar organzations outside of SMOTJ and OSMTH that have reverted back to the practice of heritary and/or pseudo-sovereign leaders, and even use the name of SMOTJ and OSMTH or some variation thereof. They are pseudo-sovereign because in reality, there is no recognition as a sovereign nation either in the United Nations or by any other constituted nation. They simply cannot conduct business in that arena. The same reality applies in non-Templar orders as well."

So, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (SMOM), known historically as the Knights Hospitaller, with its unbroken and fully documented history stretching back to the First Crusade, and with its Permament Observer status at the UN, cannot conduct business in that arena? Plus, this paragraph seems to contradict earlier use of the term 'sovereign'. Is it referring to the supposedly obsolete practice of swearing oaths to the sovereign mentioned earlier, or is it referring to the fact that the SMOM claims to have sovereignty over itself independent of any state?

I don't have the one book this article uses as a reference to examine, but the text as a whole makes far too many political and historical claims that, in my opinion, don't belong in a Wikipedia article on the modern OSMTH/SMOTJ. I feel that someone who comes here looking for information on that modern order could be getting the wrong idea. Like I said, I don't want to start a fight, but I'd like to see what others have to think about this. Void 00 04:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Like Penn and Teller so well puts it...

Bulls**t. The writer/order obviously has no knowledge of the concept of sovereignity and internationall law, and the reason to claiming the issue of fons honorum as an obsolete question is - of course - to maximize the number of dazzled candidates. Since OSMTH/SMOTJ (or any other templar order) does not have any connection to either a sovereign it simply will not be regarded as genuine och legitimate by the genuine orders of chivalry.

jonar242