Background

The modern Templar Order has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and the spread of democracy in the Western World. Following the American Revolution in 1776, ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood were gaining momentum in Europe, especially in France. In the aftermath of his self-appointment as Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte was being challenged by liberal grassroots organizations like the Masons who supported French democracy. Around 1804, a more conservative group of Masons, the Chevaliers de la Croix, unveiled two documents that "proved" not only the secret survival of the Templars since 1314, but that the current Grand Master was one of their own members, a physician named Fabre-Palaprat. For reasons he never articulated, Napoleon blessed this attempt to "restore" the Templars, called the Order of the Temple. The new Order’s Grand Master was Fabre-Palaprat, and they pledged loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church, to Napoleon, and to the monarchy that eventually took his place. The Order ultimately fell victim to Fabre-Palaprat’s demand for absolute authority and his effort to impose his Gnostic Johannite beliefs on members, and it died out by 1870.

Templars in the 20th Century

The Belgian Grand Priory established by Fabre-Palaprat survived a bit longer, but it too collapsed over dissension between orthodox and Johannite Catholic members. However, several former members sought to re-establish the Order as an international organization in 1932, calling it the Sovereign and Military Order of Temple of Jerusalem. Its first Regent was Emile-Isaac Vandenberg, who successfully revived priories in France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and elsewhere across Europe. With the outbreak of World War II, he feared for the organization’s survival in the face of a Nazi occupation, and he temporarily transferred the group’s archives to the Portuguese Grand Prior, Antonio Campello de Sousa Fontes.

At the war’s end, Vandenberg made repeated requests to return the archives, which Sousa Fontes ignored. Vandenberg died suddenly, and Sousa Fontes seized the opportunity to assume the title of Regent. This laid the foundation for a schism in the organization, which was never amicably resolved. On his own authority, Sousa Fontes subsequently revised the governing statutes of the Order and designated his son Fernando to succeed him. Upon his death, Fernando did so and declared himself Prince Regent in 1960.

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