On Friday, October 13, 1307, by order of the King of France, Philip IV the Fair, all French Templars were arrested. The order was officially banned, but traces of the "disappeared" Templars are found even in Russia.
Neo-Templars
From all that can be read about the successors of the Knights Templar, we can conclude that the Templars are not the same. The Templars of the 20th century have little to do with the order, which in medieval Europe was richer than all states, but in Russia there were and remain those who call themselves the descendants of those very "templars".
In 1917, Apollo Andreevich Karelin, an anarchist and sociologist, returned to Russia. During his life abroad, he was converted to the Order, this significant event took place in France. Karelin returned to Russia with a specific goal: to lay the foundation for the "Eastern Detachment" of the Order. The Knights Templar was opened by Karelin together with Andrei Bely in 1920. The first "knights" who took initiation to lead their own circles were artists Yu. A. and V. A. Zavadskiy, V. S. Smyshlyaev, M. A. Chekhov, mathematicians A. A. Solonovich and D. A. Bem, scientists N. I. Proferansov, M. I. Sizov, N. P. Kiselev, M. V. Dorogova, art critic A. A. Sidorov, poet and writer P. A. Arensky, artists L. A. Nikitin and A. V. Uyttenhoven, anarchists N. K. Bogomolov and G. I. Anosov.
The Order of the Knights Templar included several sub-orders, which were preparatory stages: "Order of Light", "Order of the Spirit", "Temple of Arts". The organization maintained a strict hierarchy. "Knights" received new degrees of initiation, passing a kind of exams, including the story of several legends and the recitation of a secret formula. Independently of the Order, there was also a "Brotherhood of Mercy", which united part of both knights who had already taken initiation and people who stood close to the Order, but did not formally join it. The purpose of the brotherhood was to provide any necessary assistance to those who needed it (including non-members of the order), but so that the recipient of the assistance (monetary, clothing, medical, social) did not know where it came from.
At the meetings, the knights of the Order were told ancient legends, lectures were given on cosmology and philosophy, about chivalry, the world of spirits, Atlantis, the infinity of universes, about the spiritual principles in man, the earthly embodiment of which is just one of the many stages in the development of the spiritual molecule (monad), which is "Brick" of the general system of the universe.
Despite the fact that there were many anarchists among the Templars, they did not set themselves any political tasks. The aim of the Order was enlightenment, questions of history, philosophy, problems of art were discussed. The OGPU, however, thought otherwise. The Templars were nicknamed "anarchomists" and in 1930 they were arrested and repressed.
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Templar gold
The Templars were the richest order of chivalry in history. They were so rich that none of the existing states could compare with them. The main mystery that the Templars left behind was the mystery of the Templars' gold that has sunk into oblivion. That's how history works.
There is a version, the reliability of which, however, is in great doubt, that the Templars' gold should be sought not just somewhere, but in Russia.
This version is based on information that on one of the nights before the wave of arrests, the Templars' gold was taken from Paris to the port of La Rochelle, where it was loaded onto 18 galleys that departed in an "unknown direction." And in 1307, Yuri Danilovich Moskovsky was in Novgorod, where he met overseas kaliks (pilgrim wanderers), who arrived at 18 embankments. The Kaliks brought "a myriad of gold treasuries, pearls and precious stones," which bowed down to Prince Yuri, Vladyka and all people; then they complained to those who had met "the whole lie of the prince of Gauls and the pope." Like any conspiracy theory, this version is good for its boldness and lack of evidence. It remains a mystery how the ships freely arrived from France to Novgorod, bypassing all the cordons. It should also be borne in mind that at that time there were "purges" throughout Europe,there were many Templars eager for gold.
Assumption Cathedral
Rumors that the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir was built with the money of the Templars have been circulating in the pseudo-scientific literature for a long time. They are based on the assumption that Andrei Bogolyubsky took part in the second crusade. There is no reliable information about this, but since there is none, then (according to the logic of revisionist historians) it is logical to assume that something is unclean here, something is being hidden. The assumption of a close relationship between the Vladimir prince and the emperor Frederick is based on one mention in the works of Vasily Tatishchev. The historian wrote that the German emperor allegedly sent some craftsmen to Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky for the construction of the Assumption Cathedral: "The craftsmen were sent from the Emperor Frederic Pervago, with whom Andrei was in friendship." That, in fact, is all the "evidence" that the Assumption Cathedral was built with the help of the Templars. This hypothesis cannot be valid, if only for the reason that during the years of the construction of the cathedral, the Templars were far from as rich as it is customary to think of them: the order only, as they say, “gained momentum,” but the fact that during its construction there were Friedrich's "guest workers" are involved, not such a rare practice.
Order of the Eastern Templars
The Order of the Eastern Templars is an organization that still has its representative office in Russia. The center of the order is located in California, this is due to the fact that it was there that Aleister Crowley founded the Agape Lodge. The Oriental Templar Order recognizes the owl as a divergence from traditional Freemasonry, but degrees of initiation also exist. Both men and women can become members of the order.
The Moscow branch of the Order - "Pan's Asylum" was created on the basis of a charter issued by the Supreme Council of the Ordo Templi Orientis on April 15, 2000. The core of the Pan's Refuge Camp was formed by Russian members of the Order, who received initiation in other countries. The Order's program includes the study of magic and mysticism. This organization is related to the Templars only by name.
Moscow Templar
Rumors that the Templars' gold "settled" in Russia also gave rise to the hypothesis that the rise of Moscow became possible precisely thanks to the wealth brought by the knights. According to supporters of alternative history, before becoming the capital of a secular state, Moscow for a long time was a stronghold, or komturstvo, of the Templars. So, from the chronicles it is known that from 1305 to 1314 there was a massive arrival of servicemen in Moscow. These knights ("on horseback in full armor") came from the horde, from Lithuania and "from the Germans" and were just the Templars who fled from the Inquisition and the French king. The hypothesis of the rise of Moscow on the money of the Templars is not accepted by most historians, but fans of sensations and scandals will always give their "arguments" in its favor.
Holy grail
One of the main mysteries left to us by the Templars is the Holy Grail. The sacred relic, which disappeared with the disappearance of the Order, is still in Moscow, according to some historians. So, Dmitry Zenin claims that the Holy Grail is located in the dungeons between St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin. In his opinion, the Christian artifact allegedly came to Russia as a dowry of the English wife of the Russian prince Vladimir Monomakh.
Templar symbolism
Supporters of versions about the Russian Templars often build their hypotheses not on historical documents, chronicles and archaeological finds, but on illustrative material, which is a variety of symbols spied on by "researchers". Templar symbols can be found everywhere: in the eight-pointed stars at St. Basil's Cathedral, on the crosses and roses of old cemetery gratings, in the ornaments of the stucco molding of Stalin's skyscrapers.
For all the shortcomings and miscalculations of the fans of the "Templar secret", one cannot but say that several influential Russian noble families had Templars as their ancestors: the Shchukins, Nazimovs, Nesterovs, Suvorovs, but it is hardly necessary to talk about the "secret" here. For several generations assimilated in the Russian environment and the Russian tradition, they no longer had anything to do with the Order of Jacques de Mollet. Masonic lodges, which existed and exist in Russia to this day, also have a distant relationship to the Templars. Sometimes it’s better that the secret remains secret.