How the Templars Never Quite Disappeared

The Knights Templar were dissolved by papal decree in 1312. Seven hundred years later, there are Templar knights in Tomar, in Lisbon, in the Algarve, in London — and they are inducting new members, conducting guided tours of medieval castles, running humanitarian missions, and planning their 2026 programme at a National Convent. This requires some explanation.

What actually happened in 1312

The suppression of the Templar Order was a legal act, not a cultural one. Pope Clement V, operating under intense pressure from King Philip IV of France, dissolved the Order at the Council of Vienne in March 1312. In Portugal, King Dinis refused to prosecute the Portuguese Templars, who had been found innocent of the French charges. His response was pragmatic: he negotiated with Rome for two years until he had secured permission to create a new institution — the Order of Christ — that would absorb everything the Templars had built in Portugal.

The mythology and why it matters

Between 1312 and the twentieth century, the Templar story accumulated layers of mythology so dense that separating historical fact from romantic invention requires significant effort. The claims of institutional continuity from the medieval Order to the Masonic bodies or neo-Templar organisations of today cannot be documented in the way that, say, the continuity from the Templars to the Order of Christ can be documented. But the mythology matters: it kept the Templar story alive in popular consciousness through seven centuries. The mythology brings people to the territory. The territory, experienced directly, is more interesting than the mythology.

The Grand Priory of Portugal

The contemporary Templar presence in Portugal is primarily represented by the Grande Priorado de Portugal, the Portuguese branch of the Ordem Soberana e Militar do Templo de Jerusalém (OSMTH/OSMTHU). The organisation states clearly that it does not claim to revive the ancient Templar Order. From the medieval Order, the OSMTH seeks to recover the charitable spirit, the mutual aid, and the systematic pursuit of knowledge — adopting the ceremonial and symbols of the medieval knights in that spirit.

In January 2024, the Comenda de Tomar received twenty-four new Templars — knights and ladies — in a Chapter ceremony. In 2024 and 2025, the Grand Priory marked its thirtieth anniversary with a travelling exhibition of seven panels on Templar history, visiting municipalities across Portugal. In November 2025, its Secular Templi branch travelled to London to work with newly established English-speaking members — an active expansion into the anglophone world.

What they do

Historical research: the Grand Prior of Portugal conducts regular guided tours of the Convento de Cristo in Tomar, describing it as the largest Templar-origin architectural complex in the world. Humanitarian action: in March 2022, the organisation drove a convoy from the Algarve to the Ukrainian border carrying food, medicine, and supplies, returning with refugee families. The medieval motto of the Order — to protect pilgrims, defend the defenceless — is being applied, in contemporary form, to contemporary situations.

Why this matters for the visitor to northern Alentejo

The northern Alentejo was the operational frontier of the medieval Order in Portugal. Not its ceremonial centre, but the actual territory where Templar knights lived, administered land, issued charters, built castles, and organised the daily life of communities for over a century. The cross carved in the vault of the Ermida de São Silvestre is not a symbol that requires the mythology to be interesting. It is interesting because it is real, because it was put there by real people who held real institutional power in this landscape, and because the landscape itself is the evidence of what they built.