The divine feminine was revered by the Cistercians and the Knights Templar whose patron is Mary Magdalene and who also showed a preference for venerating female saints like St Helena, one of their most important saints to whom they would dedicate many churches and chapels. But also St Catherine of Alexandria (connected to Hypatia) and St Euphemia (Helen Nicholson) whose head relic seemed to have been found when the Knights Templar were arrested in 1307 in France. Euphemia, known as the All-praised in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was a virgin martyr, who died for her faith at Chalcedon in 303 AD. According to tradition, Euphemia was martyred for refusing to offer sacrifices to Ares. She was arrested and after suffering various tortures, died in the arena at Chalcedon from a wound sustained from a bear. Her tomb became a site of pilgrimages.
“a great head of gilded silver, most beautiful, in the image of a woman. Inside were two head bones, wrapped in white linen with another red cloth around it. On an attached label is written “CAPUT LVIII” ~ “HEAD 58”
The first evidence we have of this reverence for the divine feminine is actually in written form, and we find it in the Latin Rule of the Knights Templar, which was written up by Bernard de Clairvaux with Hughes de Payens. Bernard, was a Cistercian abbot, family of the initial founding Knights and whose mother was Cathar (Aleth de Montbard). He was an avid Marianist (even preached the second crusade from Vezelay – black Madonna) and who experienced a miracle with the virgin (lactation of St Bernard) where he received 3 drops of her breast milk and was thereafter able to perform miracles and had the gift of second sight. What is interesting is, that 3 drops of a liquid is often part of an initiation ritual in the mysteries…
Women and the feminine are in fact KEY to understanding the Templars. In the grail romances and poems written by the Troubadours which also represent the “green language of initiation” or langue vert, we often see women representing truth, purity of heart and carrying the “grail” regardless of it being a cup or a dish.
These women, or beloved, are not really women but the divine feminine aspect of wisdom/Sophia, which had been deleted from history and from the world and, therefore, part of the ancient teachings and beliefs prior to the Church of Rome. This is part of the true mission of the Templars and they tell us this. We see it in the Templar Rule and in the Grail romances and poems of the Troubadours of the Languedoc but also encoded in stone in Cistercian architecture. It is part of Sufism (The Beloved & The Religion of Love), and also Gnosticism.
