President Jeffrey Strickland

Knights of the Cross President Jeffrey Strickland

The story of the Templars is one of the most desolate and obscure in the history of the medieval West. Created as a military-religious order to defend the Holy Land, after becoming one of the most powerful and influential institutions of all Christianity, the Temple was put under inquisition at the beginning of the fourteenth century and then suspended in 1312 because of the serious charges that weighed on its members. The last Grand Master Jacques de Molay, along with one of the highest dignitaries of the Order, chose to die as a testimony of his innocence, contrasting the guilt of brothers who had been imputed to them, heresy, adherence to an anti-Christian beliefs, corruption of morals, and idolatry. Condemned to the stake for trying to defend the honor to the end of the Temple, shortly before his death would de Molay summon Clement V and Philip the Fair before the Court of God to give account of their responsibility. Both died before the turn of the year. This is their true, substantiated story.