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"Christian" Occult Symbols

St. Matthew's Legacy & the Knights of Malta

A ministry which Jacob Prasch of Moriel endorses in his Sites of Interest and views the minister as one of his "comrades in Christ’s cause," is St. Matthew's Press.   The link to St. Matthews Press leads directly to St. Matthews Anglican Church, Cambridge, where Revd. Philip Foster serves as Vicar.[http://www.ely.anglican.org/parishes/camstmatts/old/index.html] 

A Maltese Cross adorns the home page. Noteworthy is the history of St. Matthew’s.  The Biographies of the Founders reveals that Alderman Richard Rowe was the father of Richard Reynolds Rowe, who was the Architect of St. Matthew's Church. Their Arms and ancestry are traced back to Godfrey de Bouillon and the Crusades. This founding family were Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or the Knights of Malta. www.ely.anglican.org/parishes/camstmatts/old/Biographies.html

Rick Joyner and many others within "Christianity" are Knights of Malta. Rick Joyner has defended the SMOM in the April 1998 issue of Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin and also in a booklet he's written called Courage that Changed The World, available at MorningStar.

"There have also been a host of splinter groups and outright imposters which claim to be the Knights of Malta, and have no connection to the Sovereign Order or the Catholic Order. Some of these do have questionable doctrines and practices. Just as the whole church usually takes the blame for the actions of its most extreme elements, even those who are not true Christians, some naively consider these splinter groups to be a reflection of all who claim to be knights of the Order of St. John. Even so, when I asked the present leader of the Sovereign Order about these other groups, he was magnanimous, saying that those who do the deeds of true knights and ladies and are genuine Christians should be recognized."

The web site of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta Federal Association, USA,[http://www.smom.org/] shows the history of the Knights of Malta, it's connection to Catholicism and the various names used. 

"Blessed Gerard originally founded "The Hospice of St. John of Jerusalem" prior to the 1st Crusade to care for sick and poor pilgrims in Jerusalem. In 1120, after Pope Urban II issued a Bulla recognizing the Hospice as a military religious order, the Order became "The Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem". Its members became known as "Knights of St. John", "Knights of the Hospital" or simply "Knights Hospitallers". Later, after the capture of Rhodes, the Order’s name became "The Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and of Rhodes". The knights of that period were known as "The Knights of Rhodes", as well as by their previous names. After the loss of Rhodes, the Order came into possession of the Island of Malta. The Order’s name then became "The Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta". After the loss of Malta the name of the Order became "The Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta". Since that time, the members have since been referred to most commonly as "The Knights of Malta", however, they may still be referred to as "Knights of St. John", "Knights of the Hospital" or "Knights Hospitaller". The Order is now typically referred to as "The Sovereign Military Order of Malta", "The Order of Malta", or the "SMOM". . . 

http://www.smom.org/other/index.html "...Listed below are the four Orders of St. John that are related to the Order of Malta and are officially recognized by the Vatican. 

"... In addition to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta...Orders of St. John recognized by the Vatican: 

The Johanniter Order
The Johanniter Order in The Netherlands
The Johanniter Order in Sweden
The Venerable Order of St. John

"...the Sovereign Military Order of Malta with headquarters in Rome, at Via Condotti 68, which maintains formal and official diplomatic relations with over 80 States and International Organizations, and which has been recognized with the status of Permanent Observer to the United Nations with Resolution No. 48/265 of 24 August 1994..."

The Nazis, the Vatican and the CIA [http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/caqsmom25.1.html] has been posted on the website of John Prewett, whose beliefs we definitely do not agree with. However, Part 3 discloses the role of the Knights of Malta, the infamous Masonic P2 Lodge with the Nazis and subsequent cover-up by Pope Paul VI, successor to Pope John XXIII. 

"Freemasonry generally purports to be hostile to Catholicism, and conversely, the Vatican has at various times forbidden Catholics to join Masonic organizations. Nevertheless, in December of 1969 an exclusive meeting was held in the Rome office of Count Umberto Ortolani, the Ambassador of the Order of Malta to Uruguay, who has been called "the brains" behind the fascist P-2 Masonic Lodge, which had been established in the mid-1960s.20 In addition to Ortolani, the meeting included only Licio Gelli, Roberto Calvi, and Michele Sindona. [21. Larry Gurwin, The Calvi Affair (London: Pan Books, 1984), p.15] 

"Gelli had fought for Franco (who was himself a Bailiff Grand Cross of SMOM) with Mussolini's troops during the Spanish Civil War. He was a committed fascist during WW II and at the end of the war was wanted by the partisans for collaborating with the Nazis. After the war he developed extensive interests in Latin America where he became close friends with the Argentinean dictator Juan Peron; he was also the Grand Master of P-2. [22. Gelli had chartered the plane which brought Peron back to Argentina in 1972 and was an honored guest at his inauguration; shortly thereafter Lopez Rega, Peron's Minister of Social Welfare who ran the Argentine death squads and who was an astrologer and mystic, joined P-2] 

"Calvi had fought on the Eastern front during the war and was decorated by the Nazis. At the time of the 1969 meeting he was a senior officer at Banco Ambrosiano. 

"Sindona had set up business in 1943 with the help of Vito Genovese, whose Mafia contacts facilitated the American landing on Sicily. By 1948 Sindona had received a letter of introduction to Vatican intelligence operative Montini [later pope .... JP]. 

"According to Larry Gurwin's The Calvi Affair, 

'One of Sindona's first steps in cultivating the Vatican's money men occurred in the late 1950s when through a priest, he met Prince Massimo Spada, a Vatican nobleman and the senior layman at IOR.
[Massimo Spada had become a Knight of Malta on September 21, 1944. IOR, the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (Institute for Religious Works), known generally as the Vatican Bank, was created in 1942 by Pius XII.] At the same time he nurtured his friendship with Giovanni Montini, who had become cardinal-archbishop of Milan in 1954.' 

"In 1959 Montini needed to raise a large sum of money for an old people's home, and he turned to Sindona for help. Sindona reportedly raised $2 million in a single day. In 1960 Sindona purchased a small Milanese bank called Banca Privata and, thanks to his Vatican friendships, it soon began receiving deposits from IOR. Three years later Montini was elected Pope Paul VI and Sindona's Vatican connections were unbeatable.' [23. Gurwin, op. cit., n. 21, pp. 11, 12. See also, David A. Yallop, In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I (New York: Bantam, 1984)] 

"The Italian journal L'Espresso of June 28, 1981 indicates that numbers of high ranking members of the Italian military intelligence organizations were both SMOMs and members of P-2. The list of dual members included General Santovito, the former head of SISMI; Admiral Giovanni Torrisi, the head of the general staff of the Army, and General Giovanni Allavena, head of the intelligence service (then Sifar, which was later split into SISDE and SISMI). 

"The conclusion of the affair is generally known. When, in 1983, the Vatican was finally forced to establish an 'independent' commission to study the relationship between its IOR (since 1970 Ñ and still Ñ headed by Chicago-born Bishop Paul Marcinkus) and the P-2/Banco Ambrosiano criminal fascists, two of the three members selected were Hermann Abs and Joseph Brennan. 

"Abs, who features in nearly every book on the Third Reich and the Nuremberg trials, was Hitler's paymaster, as chairman of the Deutsche Bank from 1940 to 1945, and was a member of the board of I.G. Farben. He regained the board chairmanships of both firms after the war, even though in Yugoslavia he had been convicted of war crimes in absentia. In 1953 he received the Great Federal Service Cross for his services in restoring West Germany's financial power; and in 1960 he was decorated by Franco for his "services" to fascist Spain. [24. Yallop, op. cit., n. 23, p. 323; National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany, Brown Book: War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany (Berlin: Documentation Center of the State Archives Administration of the German Democratic Republic, n.d. [c. 1966]), p. 39] 

"The choice of Abs for the Vatican commission of inquiry was so outrageous that at the urging of Charles Higham, the Wiesenthal Center issued a special packet of documents clearly showing Abs's involvement in war crimes and publicly protested to the Vatican, all to no avail. 

"Joseph Brennan is the Chairman of the executive committee of the Emigrant Savings Bank of New York and a Knight of Malta." [CAIB, Winter 1986, #25, "Nazis, the Vatican and the CIA," pp. 34-5] http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/caqsmom25.3.html

J. Peter Grace of the CNP was head of SMOM in the US. "Grace was involved in Project Paperclip [http://www.crossfields.com/~watcher/nwonazi.html]-- a post World War II CIA arrangement to remove classified information from dossiers so that former SS members and 900+ Nazi scientists could emigrate to the U. S. Hundreds of war criminals would find employment within government agencies and companies such as W.R. Grace chemical company whose president was J. Peter Grace."

A recent discussion with a Knight's Templar revealed his belief that they are the "Christian" division of Freemasonry. On the Knight's Templar web site, [http://www.commandery.com/] The Commandery of Knight's Templar are the symbols which include the Maltese Cross, the Egyptian tau, the all-seeing eye, their symbol of the crown and cross and so on. The website states, "Today's Knight Templar is a man dedicated to the living Christ, and the defense of the virtues contained in the practices observed by all true Christians." A perusal of the meanings of the symbols and writings would indicate otherwise. A further perusal of such writings as found in Masonic Essays would further validate these are not followers of Jesus Christ. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8291/donfr.html

In relating their pride in the history and architecture of this building, St. Matthew's displays several pictures of their stain glass windows. The "Central window 'Christ on the Cross" is of particular interest. (Click for an enlargement) In the picture, the white dove that is enclosed in the circle is Identical to some of the O.T.O doves mentioned in the previous article.. 

To recap, the upside down dove is used by Satanist's,  and Alistair Crowley’s used that dove in gematria. [See: Kabbalah: Gematria and Numerology] When queried about the occult use of the upside down dove in the O.T.O logos and seals, the reply from a Mr. Peter Koenig was: “dove = holy spirit.”   

The Red cross is reminiscent of the Knights Templar Cross. The crescent moon and sun are represented in eastern religions and on the Maitreya Logo discussed in "Christian" Occult Symbols. They represent the adrogony and union of the male and female. 

On the Top of the cross are the letters INRI--which they describe as being an acronym of the inscription on the Cross. INRI is used in the O.T.O seals. Acronyms such as these are found consistently within Gematria.

According to the book,  The History and Practice of Magic, "Hermes called it [INRI] the Rose Cross." 24   Quoting Laurie Cabot, a witch," ... HERMES seems to have been a universal Indo-European god who TAUGHT ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY AND THE MANY MAGICAL PRACTICES THAT ARE AT THE HEART OF WITCHCRAFT..." 25  

INRI is also connected to the vision of Ezekiel and it's symbolism.

"The Ancient Magi wore the Rose Cross hung from the neck on a golden chain; but so as not to reveal to the profane the sacred word INRI. They replaced these 4 letters by the 4 figures which are brought together in the Sphinx: Man, Bull, Lion and Eagle." 26. 

Another author writes: "To the Illimunatti the "Last Word" was once God in a human form. They represent this 'human God" with the word of 4 letters, INRI, (not really meaning Christ) and the symbol of a red rose inside a cubic stone..."27  

Two stained glass windows at St. Matthew's are dedicated to Elizabeth Sewell and Emelia Wisken. A circular window over Elizabeth Sewell contains a red rose in a jewelled circle mounted at the centre of a decorative golden cross placed in a dramatic radiating blue background. [http://www.ely.anglican.org/parishes/camstmatts/old/Glass.html]

A sketch of this window forms the logo at the head of the home page. [http://www.ely.anglican.org/parishes/camstmatts/old/] 

St. Matthew's stated source for all their icons is the Catholic Church: "Church Symbolism. A treatise on the general symbolism and iconography of the Roman Catholic Church edifice. By M.C. Nieuwbarn, published by Sands & Co, London, 1910."  28 

The "Glossary entry for Holy Rosey Cross" defines the red rose and rosy cross in this manner:  "The Holy Rosey Cross" is a reference to The Rosicrucian Order, formally The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (which literally translates into the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross)... There is no religious connotation associated with the Rosy Cross symbol; it predates Christianity. The cross symbolically represents the human body and the rose represents the individual's unfolding consciousness." http://biblio.ucs.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/glossary/rosey.html

However, that is not entirely accurate. The Rosicrucian Manual from the Grand Lodge in San Jose, California teaches that The Hermetic Rose Cross symbolism is entirely steeped in alchemy, cabala and the zodiac.

"...the alchemical and hermetic Rose Cross...is a very old MYSTICAL symbol. It is composed of two Rosey crosses united into one: the small Rosy cross at the centre-representative of the man, the microcosm--is in turn, the center point of a larger rose...symbolic of the macrocosm. Upon the four ends of the large cross are inscribed the three ALCHEMICAL symbols...Upon the other ends of the cross the symbols have been inscribed in such an order as to conform to the ESOTERIC tradition.

"Also upon the arm adjacent to the alchemical symbols, is the symbol of the PENTAGRAM...On the lower arm of the figure, below the large rose is a HEXAGRAM...composed of two interlaced triangles. At it's points are inscribed the six planets, according to the ancient ASTROLOGICAL tradition: at the bottom is the moon, at its right is Venus, followed in turn by Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Mercury. At the center of the hexagram is the SUN. The order of arrangement of these symbols conforms to certain CABALISTIC RITUALS. "

"The Lower end of the longest arm is divided into four section by two diagonal lines. These sections are colored according to the four colors of Malkuth of the Cabalistic 'Tree of Life.' The four sets of three rays which extend outward from the center of the large cross symbolize the Divine light. The letters inscribed upon each large center-ray combine into INRI, which combination, according to the Rosicrucian historian Fr. Wittemans, represents a Latin Motto meaning 'Nature is renewed by fire.' The letters upon the smaller rays represent INVOCATIVE names of Latin, Egyptian and Greek origin."

"The petals of the large rose on the cross are twenty two in number, and stand for the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Cabalistic alphabet. [Gematria] The outer circle of twelve petals represents the twelve single letters of this alphabet, and in particular the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The next circle...symbolizes the seven double letters...the seven ASTROLOGICAL planets..." 29 

[See: Kabbalah: Gematria and Numerology] 

1 John 4:1 

" Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."

Next Section: The Legend of Hanukkah

Previous Section: Hexagrams & Doves 

  Footnotes

24. The History and Practice of Magic; Paul Christian; The Citadel Press, 1963 

25. Masonic and Occult Symbols Illustrated, p. 174; Dr. Cathy Burns; Sharing, 1998

26. The History and Practice of Magic; Paul Christian; The Citadel Press, 1963

27. Stan Deyo; p.60;  The Cosmic Conspiracy, Kempton Ill; Adventures Unlimited Press, 1994

28. http://www.ely/anglican.org/parishes/camstmatts/old/Glass.html

29.  H. Spencer Lewis. Rosicrucian Manual (Vol.No.8), (San Jose, California;Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1966; p. 137-138 as cited in Burns, p172- 174.

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