Talk:Priory of Sion

(Copied by →Raul654 from a message on the mailing list.)

Dear Sir,

Your definition for the entry "Priory of Sion" in Wikepedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion

is a mish-mash of romantic twaddle.

I keep trying to change the definition by creating a more realistic account but my version keeps getting deleted. Furthermore, the link to our website: http://www.priory-of-sion.com is part of the useless romantic definition

I do not want that article to use a Link to our website because we do not want to be associated with that particular "definition" - it is pure nonsense.

I have used a partly translated chapter from a book by Pierre Jarnac as the main part of my definition - no copyright has been violated because Jarnac and myself interchange each other's material - he uses my material freely in his books.

I enclose the definition on the Priory of Sion that is a reasonable definition below this message - Is there any possibility that you can make this version stick without it being constantly deleted?

Thank you very much.

Most Sincerely Yours, Paul Smith

Pierre Jarnac, Les Archives de Rennes-le-Chateau pp.567-575 (1987)

Historical Note on the Priory of Sion

For the obviously capable reader who has an uncanny ability to transform a tiny French village of 70 inhabitants into the secret society capital of France, then the name "Priory of Sion", itself, appears to be a mysterious and untouchable entity. After the name of this organisation appears on the scene, one Pierre Plantard swiftly follows and with him a whole secret society seemingly hidden away for centuries re-emerges.

In reality, the name "Priory of Sion", given almost 40 years ago by Pierre Plantard to an organisation without any financial goals, is hardly original. Not only is the name "de Sion" found close to where Plantard lived, hence the mountain in Haute-Savoie called, "Mont Sion" on the route to Annecy-Geneva, this name also goes back to a religious community at the time of the Crusades, whose demise came after several centuries on the outskirts of Orleans.

In 1967, those for whom this confusion was to be most profitable, bestowed upon themselves the legacy of this ancient order, one that was far from their own. A book called the LIVRE DES CONSTITUTIONS DU PRIEURE DE SION, allegedly published in 1954 in Geneva and which to everyone's great chagrin has never been seen (it has been established by Pierre Jarnac that this book never existed), claimed a link with the original religious community called "Sion". The only trace of this Phantom Book is to be found in - guess where? - the Bibliotheque Nationale in one of those mysterious pamphlets that were deposited in the 1960s under the name "Dossiers Secrets".

Where a historical connection does emerge is that a "Priory of Sion" was recorded as having existed. Only its real name was the "Abbey of Notre Dame of Mount Sion", or "of the Mount of Sion". Godefroi de Bouillon, in 1099, founded the Abbey of Notre-Dame of Mount Sion in Jerusalem; it was a religious community comprised of monks. Situated at Saint-Jean of Acre it subsisted until 1187, however, in 1291, with the Muslims reclaiming Acre from the Crusades, the monks, having lost their possessions in the Holy Land, fled. The last of the monks from this order went to Sicily on the invitation of Count Roger and his wife, the Princess Adelasie.

In France other monks of this community, who were living close to Orleans, had previously been brought back by Louis VII in 1149 when he returned from the Crusades. They started a priory of Saint-Samson of Orleans. They were given a donation and confirmed by Pope Adrian in 1158. By 1281, this community was already in decline as there are records that show that only two members were in their choir, then in 1289 there was only one member. At this point in time the abbey was on the verge of extinction, but then its other members from Sicily came over to find refuge after years of persecution. This last community, for whom Henri IV offered to build an abbey, died out in the early part of the 17th century for various reasons such as lack of recruitment, ageing monks, no money, etc.

E.G. Rey, an archivist from Paris, living in Orleans during the 1880s became interested in the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Mont Sion. He found out that the archives of the Priory of Saint-Samson, repatriated from Sicily in the 14th century, were kept in the department of the Loiret, where they had been placed during the Revolution. Therein he discovered a Charter of the Acts for the Priory of Saint-Samson of Orleans. In particular, in the Act by Pope Alexander III there is confirmation that the Monks of Mount Sion are the owners of the Priory of Saint-Samson of Orleans. Rey was also able to compile a list of all the Abbots of Notre-Dame de Sion.

The only outstanding traits of this religious community are that they had an illustrious founder, Godefroi de Bouillon, and a religiously inspired name. Otherwise they were an Order without much history and void of prestige. Because of their relative obscurity they were probably chosen by Plantard and Co as perfect fodder for their bogus historical claims.

Note from Paul Smith:

In 1989, following a period of retirement from 1984, Pierre Plantard revived his bogus Priory of Sion with a new Pedigree and Mythological History - the "Dossiers Secrets" version of the Priory of Sion was rejected as a fraud with it being written under the influence of LSD in 1967 by Philippe Toscan du Plantier - the latest 1989 version of the Priory of Sion had nothing to do with either the Crusades or the Templars but had rather been founded in 1681 in Rennes-le-Chateau.

Pierre Plantard also concocted a new and different List of Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion that was to prove his downfall - he claimed that Roger Patrice Pelat had been a Grand Master. When the French Magistrate Thierry Jean-Pierre investigated the financial scandal involving Pelat he ordered the search of Plantard's house in 1993 that yielded a hoard of documents claiming that Plantard was the "true King of France" - detaining Plantard for a subsequent 48-hour interrogation Thierry Jean-Pierre forced a confession from Plantard that the claim was made up. Plantard was let-off with a warning - and he was never to revive his Priory of Sion activities again.

Plantard lived in hiding between 1993 and his death in 2000. This was not the first time that Plantard was in trouble with the French Legal System - Plantard had served time in prison previously during the 1940s and 1950s.

Reply to user. I am not interested in this topic and thus I am not interested in a debate over the appropriate tone of the article. However, the style of your edits was inappropriate. Replacing the article completely is, in most cases, not an appropriate way to edit it, especially with text that is strongly POV, as yours is. Your subseqent resort to outright vandalism in the article (like this [1]) will lead to immediate blocking if you do that again.

Furthermore, the copyright information you specified above regarding the book is grossly insufficient. To include such material would require written permission from the author for the material to be released under the GFDL.

But in any case, replacing the article wholesale is not a good maneuver and will be likely be reverted repeatedly by other edits. If you feel the article needs editing, by all means do so, but please respect the contribution and POV of others and edit the existing article, rather than replacing it. Even if your text were to become the article, you should realize that other edits would change it, likely restoring the very interpretation you wanted to purge. In short, if you want to make a lasting contribution to Wikipedia, please learn to work with other editors instead of riding roughshod over existing articles. -- Decumanus | Talk 18:17, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)