On this day — October the 13th — in 1307 the Knights Templar members were declared heretics and rounded up en masse to be burned at the stake. It happened on a Friday the 13th and is the origin of that day’s unluckiness, say historians.

Our New Order of the Knights Templar has observed this day for a couple of decades now by wearing black and fasting. In this way we honor our Templars of the past and connect with them in the present.

Light fasting is okay for those of you whose health conditions prevent full fasting.

The original mission of our Templar brothers and sisters of the past was to protect Christian pilgrims from Muslim attack as they traveled to worship at sacred sites.  Millions of Muslims travel to Mecca each year, but about a thousand years ago, tens of thousands of Christian devotees would make pilgrimages to visit Jerusalem and other sites holy to their religion. The muslims in charge didn’t want them coming, so they gave their soldiers standing orders to murder Christian visitors on site — after robbing them and sometimes worse.  The Templars were founded approximately a thousand years ago to stop these attacks and protect the Christian devotee pilgrims. They ended up in many a pitched battle with Muslim armies.

If a Templar were caught he would be automatically beheaded rather than offered the option to convert to Islam. Templars were not given the “traditional” option to convert to Islam because the Muslims knew they would never renounce their faith, even to avoid beheading.  Every year since 1999 I post to our Templar members on YahooGroups about Templar Remembrance Day, how we observe it with fasting and wearing black,  and mention this beheading thing.  I looked at last year’s post. My words are almost identical.  Last year I mentioned forced conversions of Christians in Syria and Egypt. I had no idea that this year we would ALL know what beheading was like.  Who knew that vile practice would be revived again by the dark side of Islam?  Of course they behead their own “criminals” in Saudi Arabia in a regular gruesome way (Saudi citizens are so oppressed), but this Muslims vs. the West beheading crap has not been seen for centuries.

Last year I also said this: The enemy is on the rise, so let us not forget today, our special Templar-Veterans Day.  It is believed that those Templar “veterans” of the past rise up whenever religious minorities of the West (especially Christians and Jews) are under attack.

Join with your fellow Templars of the present in wearing black and fasting today. Renew your vow to protect religious minorities.