Templar Bishop

The order of the Templars has its roots in the context of the Crusades. For eleventh-century Christians, Jerusalem was the center of the world, the holy city housing the Tomb of Christ and the memory of great moments in his life. Pilgrimages had developed there since the year 1000, but they became increasingly threatened when the recently converted to IslamSeljuk Turks invaded Asia Minor. From 1049, they dominated Iran, Iraq, Syria and Armenia. In 1071, they crushed the Byzantine army. Then, the road to Jerusalem was out of the Christian control of Byzantium. In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II, a Champenois, appealed to the knights of the West to liberate Jerusalem. They enlisted en masse under the orders of different leaders, including Godefroy de Bouillon. The crusaders conquer Antioch in 1098 and Jerusalem in 1099 then Caesarea in 1101, Acre in 1104, Tripoli in 1108 … While the vast majority of the knights have returned to their strongholds in the West, pilgrims continue to flock but, on approach from Jerusalem, their security remains threatened.