Priory of Sion

The Priore de Sion (French: Prieuré de Sion) is a fraternal organization, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard as part of a hoax. In the 1960s, Plantard created a fictional history for that organization, describing it as a secret society founded by Godfrey of Bouillon on Mount Zion in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, mistaking it for a genuine historical monastic order, Hagia Maria Abbey. of Mount Zion. In Plantard's version, the Priory dedicated itself to installing a secret bloodline of the Merovingian dynasty on the thrones of France and the rest of Europe. This myth was expanded upon and popularized by the 1982 pseudo-historical book The sacred enigma and was later featured in the preface to the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.

After becoming a cause celebre from the late 1960s to the 1980s, the mythical Priory of Sion was exposed as a farce created by Plantard as a framework for his claim to be the Great Monarch prophesied by Nostradamus Plantard and his accomplices were found to have falsified and then planted evidence submitted in support of their historical existence and activities prior to 1956 at various locations in France. However, many conspiracy theorists still persist in believing that the Priory of Sion is an ancient conspiracy hiding a subversive secret.

The myth of the Priory of Sion has been exhaustively debunked by journalists and scholars as one of the biggest hoaxes of the 20th century. Some skeptics have expressed concern that the proliferation and popularity of inspired books, websites and films in this deception they have contributed to the theme of conspiracy theories, pseudohistory and other increasingly conventional confusions. Others are concerned by the romantic and reactionary ideology unintentionally promoted in these works.

History

Work of Nicholas Poussin.

Historians, after having analyzed everything related to the Priory of Sion, indicate that the antiquity and the writings about it are true, reaching the following conclusion about the history of the Priory of Sion:

The manuscripts presented by Pierre Plantard, indicating that they came from Father Bérenger Saunière, who would have discovered them while he was repairing his church, would have actually been written by Pierre Plantard himself and manufactured by his friend Philippe de Cherisey. Thus, these forged documents were intended to show the survival of the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings, thus attributing a royal lineage to Pierre Plantard. Plantard manipulated Saunière's activities in Rennes-le-Château to "demonstrate" his claims related to the Priory of Sion. In this way it is estimated that between 1961 and 1984 Plantard would have invented the legendary lineage of the Priory of Sion, which emerged from the remains of the Order of Sion. Another reason to point out as false the antiquity of the Priory of Sion would be the registration of the Priory itself on July 20, 1956 in the Official Gazette of the French Republic, since if it presented the claimed antiquity, and with it a great power, there would be no had the need to register your order again.

To maintain his deception, Pierre Plantard argued in 1989 that the Priory de Sion had actually been founded in 1681 at Rennes-le-Château; but on this occasion he could not preserve his reputation and his projects. Later, in September 1993, he argued that Roger-Patrice Pelat had once been the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Pelat was a friend of then French President François Mitterrand and was the center of a scandal involving French Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy. A French court ordered a search of Plantard's house, seizing many documents, including some proclamation of Plantard as the legitimate king of France. Pursuant to the oath, Plantard admitted that he had masterminded everything, including Pelat's involvement in the Priory of Sion. Plantard was ordered to desist from all activities related to the promotion of the Priory de Sion and lived anonymously until his death on February 3, 2000, in Paris.

French authors such as Franck Marie (1978), Jean-Luc Chaumeil (1979, 1984, 1992), and Pierre Jarnac (1985, 1988) have never taken Pierre Plantard and the Priory of Sion seriously. They concluded that everything was a fraud, and for this the historians outlined their arguments in detail and gave multiple proofs that the researchers of the Holy Grail novel, for which the Priory of Sion became world famous, had not told the truth and that they had Omitted known data. With this, they argue that the evidence of the latter could not support the mythical version of the history of the Priory.

Ruse devised by Plantard

According to article I.c of the original 1956 Statutes of the Priory of Sion, the association took its name from a mountain near the French town of Annemasse, called Sion. The objective of this initiation lodge was an avant-garde movement dedicated to the restoration of the nobility and the monarchy in France, through the royalty rights of Pierre Plantard.

To do this, Pierre Plantard indicated these facts and rights by means of some parchments that, according to supporters, were those that Father Bérenger Saunière had discovered while fixing up his church. Among these documents he indicated the existence of a legendary lineage of the Priory of Sion, supposedly sprung from the remnants of the Order of Sion, which had been founded in Jerusalem during the First Crusade by Godfrey of Bouillon. Thus, with these documents they intended to show the survival of the Merovingian dynasty of the Frankish kings.

The supporters closest to the idea of the real existence of the Priory are based on the following arguments:

1. There's a list of great illustrious teachers. This would indicate that the Order of Zion would have a long history beginning with the creation of the Knights Templars and their military and financial fronts. However, this list is based on a recognized false document.
2. It is said that he had an important role in promoting the myth of the "hidden river of esotericism", the Alph, in medieval Europe.
3. The Merovingia dynasty, which ruled the Franco kingdom from 447 to 751 AD, was re-established on the thrones of Europe and Jerusalem, despite the fact that not a single accredited descendant of such dynasty remained.
4. The order would protect this royal dynasty because according to the doctrine of order, the Merovingia dynasty would be the supposed direct descendants of Jesus and his supposed wife Mary Magdalene. However, genetic studies conducted in 2006, the programme Looking for the truth (Digging for the Truth) of the television channel The History Channel, performed a genetic analysis of Arnegonda (Aragunde), one of the first merovingian queens, in order to prove or rule out that the lineage descends from Jesus or Mary Magdalene. The result of the analysis concluded that the origin of the lineage of the Merovingian dynasty was only European and was not genetically related to any of the populations of the Middle East, which ruled that the French legend of the alleged offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who were clearly Jews, was real.

Secret Currencies

Et in Arcadia ego is described as the official motto of both the Plantard family and the Priory of Sion, as reported in 1994. It is a Latin phrase, which appears inscribed on a tomb drawn in a painting from 1640, The Shepherds of Arcadia, by the French painter Nicolas Poussin. This literally means 'and in the Arcadia I...'

However, according to this legend there is an added smear (which was not in Poussin's original painting), which suggests a word is missing. Although not necessary in Latin grammar, the ending sum has been suggested to mean: 'And I am in Arcadia'. Furthermore, it has been speculated that the entire phrase Et in Arcadia ego sum is an anagram of Arcam dei tango Iesu, which means "I have touched the tomb of Jesus& #3. 4;. This would imply that the tomb would contain the ossuary of Jesus of Nazareth. Regardless of this impressive theory, one concludes that it is simply an argument without historical foundation, since all this is not part of the well-documented history of Poussin's painting.

Ultimate goals

The ultimate objectives of the Priory of Sion would be:

• the foundation of a "Holy European Empire" which would become the next superpower and promoter of a New World Order of Peace and Prosperity;
• the supplantation of the Catholic Church for an ecumenical and Messianic state religion thanks to the revelation of the Holy Grail and the Gospel of Judas, which would demonstrate the causes of the followers of John the Baptist and draw the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene into public light;
• the re-establishment of the anointed King of Great Israel (the descendant of King David).

Relation to antisemitism

Within these ultimate objectives of the Priory of Sion, it is indicated that an interpretation of an anti-Semitic text is present and that it is considered fraudulent, since it had its main dissemination in Germany during World War II. This text, known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which its supporters consider anyway as one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence to prove the existence and activities of the Priory of Sion.

This manuscript would supposedly be a compendium of records of the secret sessions held by the great sages of the Jewish nation, exposing in them their supposed plans for world domination by the Jews.

Because of this, it is also worth mentioning that some groups, such as the followers of the Christian doctrine of the End of Days, accepting these hypotheses as facts, saw the Priory of Sion as a prophetic fulfillment of the Book of Revelation and the alleged proof of a hypothetical anti-Christian conspiracy of universal dimensions.

• The protocols of the sages of Zion (in Russian: "Протоколы сионских мудрецов", or "Сионские протоколы") is an anti-Semite pamphlet published for the first time in 1903, in Zarist Russia, whose aim was to justify the Jews ideologically. The text would be the transcription of supposed meetings of the "wise of Zion", in which these sages detail the plans of a Jewish conspiracy, which would consist of the control of the masonry and the communist movements, extended by all the nations of the Earth, and would have as its ultimate end the realization of world power.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the most famous and widely distributed anti-Semitic publication of contemporary times. His lies about the Jews, which have been repeatedly debunked, continue to circulate today, especially on the Internet. The individuals and groups that have used the Protocols are united by a common purpose: to spread hatred of Jews.[1]

Today, it is considered one of the most notorious literary hoaxes in history (such as the Hitler Diaries), and included within the major historical hoaxes (such as the discovery of Piltdown Man).

Resumption of the theory by authors essayists

In The Sacred Enigma published in 1982 by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, three British journalists present the Priory as a group of organizations like the Templars, Rosicrucians or Freemasons. In this essay, the Merovingian dynasty would descend directly from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. In this perspective, the mission of the Priory would be to hide the existence of this "sacred lineage". The three co-authors linked this mission to the theme of the Grail, traditionally associated with the Templars, and state that the "Grail" it is a metaphor for the supposed descent of Christ.

Author John Daniel also takes up the conspiracy theory described by Pierre Plantard in his book Scarlet and the Beast - A History of the War between English and French Freemasonry.

Resumption of theory in literature

At the beginning of the 21st century, interest in secret societies, and especially the Priory of Sion, has been revived in the West, thanks in part to Dan Brown's best-seller The Da Vinci Code. In this book, the Priory plays a very important role, since some of its characters are directly linked to the Priory, whose most important mission is to guard the Holy Grail and other secrets related to Gnosticism, pagan rites, and the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

It should be noted that Brown takes for his novel theories and studies long before his own, as well as myths and legends from places in the south of France, all related to the Knights Templar, Freemasonry and the Holy Grail.

A multitude of novels prior to Brown's have argued on the subject, the latter being the one that has achieved the greatest notoriety. Other example novels of the trend are:

• the saga of The children of the Grail by Peter Berling (born on March 20, 1934 at Meseritz-Obrawalde, former Prussia and present Obrzyce, Poland), set at the time after the Albigense Crusade;
• or Foucault pendulum (Il pendolo di Foucault, 1988) written by the Italian semiologist Umberto Eco. It is considered an initiatic or perhaps anti-initiatic and anti-esotheric book, due to the satirical nuances of the plot.
• The comic series "Magdalena", edited by Image Comics also assumes several postulates of that theory. In the series, Magdalena is a nun that descends directly from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and whose secret and hidden activity is the hunt and physical elimination of various demons that desolate the earth.