Date 2022/Apr/14
Performer(s)
Orquestra Nacional de Sopros dos Templários
José Pedro Figueiredo (conductor)
Venue Cineteatro São João
Town Entroncamento
Country Portugal
Created on March 14, 1319, by Pope John XXII (Bull “Ad ea ex quibus”) at the request of king D. Dinis, the Military Order of Christ succeeds in Portugal the Knights Templar, extinguished seven years earlier by Pope Clement V, by action of Philip the Fair, king of France, with the purpose of appropriating the goods of that military order. The Order of Christ, in the Latin designation “Ordo Militiae Jesu Christi”, appropriated all the incomes, jurisdictions, possessions, regalities and privileges of the Templars in Portugal. Established in the castle of Castro Marim, a location related to the mission of fighting the infidels, its first master was Gil Martins do Outeiro – who was Master of Avis – and for this purpose he was dispensed from the previous obedience. The transfer of the headquarters of the Order of Christ to the Convent of Tomar took place in 1357. In the service of the king and subject to the interests of the crown, the Order of Christ became involved in the Holy War in Africa and the Orient, and the Infante Dom Henrique (1454) entrusted it with the spiritual direction of the newly discovered and colonized territories. Extinct, like the other religious orders, in 1834, today it is a national honorific order. The city of Tomar was made a Grand Officer of this Order on June 8, 1964. Tomar and the Templars (and, by extension, all other successors) are inseparable. This is the background of this musical work, which is crossed by an imaginary folklore from the time of the foundation of the “Ordo Militiae Jesu Christi”.
Lino Guerreiro
