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The Portuguese Navy school-sail ship SAGRES
How much fiction and how many secret societies have been built upon the answer to this question? No, they didn't disappear. Many were killed, but many others escape to a country where they could lay low for a while under royal protection. People say they took the treasures with them. Certainly they took the greatest treasure of them all: knowledge. That country is Portugal. Our king Dinis, a man of culture and vision, a poet and a diplomat didn't go along with the king of France. (He was born under the Sign of Libra, by the way). He knew that Portugal was a country built by the Order of the Temple and he could have done what the French king did and go for their riches, that were so many. But Dinis was a man of justice and intelligence. So he obeyed the Pope and dissolved the Order, after seven years, but at the same time, with the permission of a new Pope, created a new one that owed obedience to the king directly: the Order of Christ. It was little more than a change of name: all the riches of the Templars and all knights were 'transferred' to the Order of Christ. Even the Grand Master remained the same. King Dinis was a fortunate man all the way, but maybe it's due to his cleverness and audacity in this situation that our people has a saying about him that goes: El-Rei Dom Dinis fez tudo o que sempre quis. (King Dinis always did all he wanted to do).
The Portuguese Federation of Football insignia
The rest is know: the Discoveries, that made Portugal the greatest country in the world for more than two centuries, were made by the Order of Christ, and still today our national coat of arms shows the Cross of Christ, used universally in the country. The city of Tomar is the place anyone interested in the Templars should visit. Its octagonal church clears any doubt you might have. And many say that if a Holy Grail really existed (whatever it was) it is there, hidden, protecting the country that protected the Templars. Portugal is full of Templar castles and full of the Order of Christ as well. This is no fiction and no secret. It's real and it's here.
The Church and Castle of Tomar
It was a Friday, the 13th October 1307 , the 'Friday, the 13th' that jinxed all Fridays, the 13th henceforth.The king of France moved against the Templars. The Pope (also French) supported him for a while, but then he acquitted them.This was one of the secrets of the Templar legend that proved to be real. The Vatican is going to make public all documents concerning the Templars on the 25th October. 700 years after. (A seven again.) Better to make amends later than never. And, I believe, a special thanks to our great king Dinis is in order, Your Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. Isn't it?
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