The Priory of Zion is a secret society that has existed for centuries. It plays an important role in the plot of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. After the murder of Sophie's grandfather, Jacques Sauniere, it is revealed that he was the Grand Master of the Priory. This knowledge becomes a kind of catalyst, forcing Langdon and Sophie to accelerate the search for the location of the main secret of the Priory, before it becomes known to the arch enemies of the Priory - the Catholic organization "Opus Dei".
According to the "official history" of the Priory of Zion, set forth in the Secret Papers, this secret society was founded by Gottfried of Bouillon in the Holy Land in 1090. After the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1099, by order of Gottfried, the construction of the Abbey of Our Lady of Zion Mountain began here. It was erected on the ruins of an ancient Byzantine church outside the city walls of Jerusalem, near Zion
Gate. This monastery housed the order of Augustinian monks who acted as advisers to Gottfried. They, according to the archives of the Priory of Zion, were involved in the creation in 1118 of the Order of the Knights Templar, which served as the military-administrative instrument of the Priory.
In 1152, a small group of novices from the monastery of Our Lady of Zion Mountain accompanied the French king Louis VII on his return to his homeland at the end of the second crusade. In France, they found refuge near Orleans. A carefully selected section of this group was housed in the "little priory of Mount Zion" near Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, on the outskirts of Orleans. As stated in the Secret Papers, the nucleus of the future Priory of Sion was created.
The Priory of Zion and the Knights Templar engaged in similar activities on an adversarial basis, which led to serious disagreements and subsequent official schism. This happened in 1188 in Gisor, in Normandy, and was called the Sawing of the Elm. The Secret Papers states that after the two orders broke off relations, the Templars continued to operate openly, gaining more and more influence in Europe under the leadership of their own Grand Masters, until their dissolution in 1307. At this point, the Priory of Sion allegedly went underground, adopting a new name - the Order of the Truth of the Rose and the Cross. It received the secret name Ormus, from the French word "orme" - "elm". Apparently, the order became the basis of the esoteric movement, which later went down in European history under the name "Rosicrucian".
The Grand Masters of the secret Priory of Zion were traditionally called the Navigators (Nautonniers). The first navigator of the Priory was Jean (John) de Gisor, who was present at the Sawing ceremony of the Elm in Gisot-re. He held this post under the name of John II from 1188 to 1220, until the day of his death. The title of navigator of the Priory of Zion was passed on to the direct heirs of the dynasty, but later the tradition changed, and the most famous and influential artists, scientists and thinkers began to occupy this post. This is evident from the list of Grand Masters, published in 1956, kept in the Secret Dossiers. In this book, he is fully reproduced in the article "The Grand Masters of the Priory of Zion." The list includes such famous personalities as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Jean Cocteau, who headed the Priory from 1918 to 1963.
There is no exact information about who replaced Cocteau as navigator of the Priory after he passed away in 1963. However, this title ultimately passed to Pierre Plantard, who served as official representative of the Priory of Sion, public relations specialist, until his retirement in 1984.
During his tenure as a navigator, Plantard was the main supplier of information for the authors of the international bestseller "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", constantly in contact with them. It was this book that brought attention to the Priory of Zion in the English-speaking countries in 1982. In preparing this book, Michael Baigent, Richard Lee and Henry Lincoln spent several years searching for the necessary information, preparing genealogical tables and diagrams, solving ciphers and clarifying facts about the activities of secret societies, conversations and contacts with the right people. All this allowed them to study a wide panorama of European history over a millennium, full of mysteries and political intrigues.
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As a result, the authors discovered the true purpose of the Priory of Sion. On the list of Plantard's priorities, the first place was the restoration of the Merovingians to the throne of the French kings, but no less important for him was the creation of a political and economic conglomerate of European states, a kind of United States of Europe. It is curious that this intention of the Priory came true with the creation of the European Union and the displacement of local currencies by the single euro.
Thus, in the absence of any clear statement or purpose, Baigent, Lee and Lincoln advanced the revolutionary hypothesis that the Merovingians represented the dynasty of the descendants of the marriage of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene (who allegedly found refuge in France after Jesus' crucifixion), and the main the purpose of the Priory of Zion was to preserve this sacred dynasty. Despite the fact that Pierre Plantard himself never once confirmed this version or rejected it, over the past two decades, many books have been written that considered the possibility of continuing the dynasty of the descendants of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene in the person of the aristocratic families of Europe.
After Plantard's resignation from his position as Priory navigator in 1984, the Priory of Sion again severed all ties with the outside world and went underground, despite persistent rumors that the organization continues its activities under a variety of guises. These rumors, in turn, gave rise to numerous fictitious orders of knighthood, some of them posing as the "real" Priory of Sion.
On December 27, 2002, a communiqué was published on the official letterhead of the Priory of Sion, signed by Ji-no Sandri, former personal secretary of Pierre Plantard. It indicated the status of Sandry - general secretary, and a certain anonymous woman was mentioned as the navigator of the order. However, many people involved in the activities of the order consider this a clever publicity stunt.
Thus, the existence of the Priory of Zion continues to be a mystery today.
INVERTED PYRAMID
An outstanding anti-construction … symbolic use of the latest technologists … a work of architecture. It was conceived as an ordinary object, but turned into an object that transmits light. " This is what the jury of the Benedictus Award Commission wrote when the Inverted Pyramid of the Museum complex in the Louvre in Paris became the finalist of the competition. Designed and built by Pei, Cobb, Fried & Partners, which was commissioned to create the glass pyramid that served as the entrance to the Louvre, the Inverted Pyramid is an imposing glass structure, the hallmark of the treasury of French art.
In The Da Vinci Code, the small pyramid at the base of the Inverted Pyramid contains the answer to the question that the characters and readers of the novel must answer.
The "inverted pyramid" is a thirty-ton structure made of glass and steel with a total area of 43.6 square meters in the form of an overturned pyramid, hanging over a small stone pyramid and its top pointing to the underground chambers. At night it is superbly illuminated by numerous spotlights and mirrors.