Priory of Sion
Priory of Sion (from French priory: " Priory ", " monastery" and Sion: "Zion" ), or Brotherhood of Mount Zion is the name of an association that of the French monarchists Pierre Plantard in Annemasse in 1956 in the department of la Haute- Savoie was founded, temporarily published a magazine called Circuit and for about a year remained active in the region. Plantard tried in the 1960s in Paris to revive the association as a secret society, and endowed them with false documents with a history of, according to which it was founded during the First Crusade of Godfrey of Bouillon in Jerusalem and historical celebrities such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Victor Hugo was one of their secret members or grandmasters. The idea of such a secret society has been since the late 1960s, taken up by many authors and media and enriched by another Vorstellungsgut from the area of modern esoteric and conspiracy theories.
The Priory of Sion in 1956
The Association Priory of Sion was officially established by Pierre Plantard on May 7, 1956 filing of the Articles in Saint -Julien -en- Genevois in Haute-Savoie. The name "Sion" is supposed to be from a place name in the region, Sion- les -Mines or Mont Sion, borrowed, but probably should evoke from the beginning with the biblical Mount Zion (Fr. "Sion" ), to which already stated in previous time associations such as the Congregation was founded in 1843 by Théodore Ratisbonne of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion woman had related. Plantard was renamed in establishing his association as Secretary-General, his co-founder were André Bonhomme (Chairman), Jean Deleaval (Vice President) and Armand Defago (Treasurer). The union took the additional title chivalry d' Institutions et Règles Catholiques d'Union Independante et Traditionaliste by the acronym CIRCUIT and issued a total of twelve numbers of a periodical of the same. For the purposes of the Association counted according to the statutes, the mutual education and support of its members, the support of the Roman Catholic Church and the help for the weak and oppressed.
The " Plantard dossiers "
The Plantard dossiers, after one of their pieces also Dossiers secrets de Henri Lobineau (Secret Dossiers of Henri Lobineau ) called, is a total of six documents that Plantard in the 1960s, using the writer, actor and humorist Philippe de Chérisey fabricated and was deposited in the years 1964-1967 as anonymous donations in the Paris National Library. These files also included a fictional genealogy of the descendants of the Merovingian royal house, herleitete from the Plantard for themselves claim to the royal throne, further pieces to the previously widespread among other things by Robert Charroux idea of a mysterious Merovingian treasure or Templar treasure in the south of France village of Rennes- le -Château. One of these parchments was copied from a reproduction of the Codex Bezae, which is shown in a book from 1895.
The effect of Plantard dossiers
Plantard and Chérisey were associated with Gérard de Sède, who had already become acquainted with books on the Templars and the Cathars and relying on the Plantard dossiers since 1967 has published several books about the treasure of Rennes- le -Château. Their first, Le trésor maudit de Rennes- le -Château ( The Cursed Treasure of Rennes- le -Château ), inspired in the 1970s, the British actor and author Henry Lincoln to books and television documentaries on the subject. Published jointly with the American writer Richard Leigh and the New Zealand journalist Michael Baigent Lincoln 1982 book The Holy Grail and his heirs ( The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail ), which still extended the mythical genealogy of the idea of the " bloodline of Jesus ": then Jesus should have been married by Nazareth and Mary Magdalene, and have had physical descendants, among whom were the Merovingian kings, and from whose name means " Sangreal " (French sang réal, " royal blood " ) the idea of the Holy Grail (French saint grail ) was created. This book made its turn one of the templates for the novel The Da Vinci Code ( The Da Vinci Code, 2003), and the parallels between the two books were the occasion of a worldwide recognized plagiarism process. Umberto Eco also uses in his novel Foucault's Pendulum the "treasure" of Rennes- le -Château on, but in a satirical way.
The unmasking Plantard
The journalist Jean -Luc Chaumeil, who belonged to the circle Plantard, 1983/84 fell out with this circle and brought on the basis of letters of Plantard, Chérisey and Sède internals and details from the history of the dossier to the public. Plantard then attempted to gain new credibility by having mustered a modified version of the origins, according to which the Priory was founded in 1681 in Rennes -le- Château. He also put together a new list of Grandmaster, at the time he also Roger -Patrice Pelat classifying, a French businessman and friend of François Mitterrand. After against Pelat in February 1989 investigation had been admitted because of a financial scandal and these died shortly afterwards, also Plantard was interrogated in the course of further investigation and carried out a search for him. In the interrogations Plantard said to have added his inventions and denies the existence of a Lodge Priory of Sion.
Plantard himself then took his ideas no longer public, but in the literature and popular culture, they are an integral part of conspiracy theories in which the confessions Plantard be interpreted as a strategy to conceal the actual historical truth.