Knights Templar (Freemasonry)
The Knights Templar, full name The United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta, is a fraternal order affiliated with Freemasonry. Unlike the initial degrees conferred in a regular Masonic Lodge, which (in all Regular Masonic jurisdictions) only require a belief in a Supreme Being regardless of religious affiliation, the Knights Templar is one of several additional Masonic Orders in which membership is open only to Freemasons who profess a belief in Christianity. One of the obligations entrants to the order are required to declare is to protect and defend the Christian faith. The word "United" in its full title indicates that more than one historical tradition and more than one actual order are jointly controlled within this system. The individual orders 'united' within this system are principally the Knights of the Temple (Knights Templar), the Knights of Malta, the Knights of St Paul, and only within the York Rite, the Knights of the Red Cross.
Karl Gotthelf von Hund
Later, he claimed that it was in Paris in 1743 that he was initiated, by Scottish knights, into the Order of the Knights Templar, and was the introduced to the pretender to the British throne, Prince Charles Edward Stuart as the Grand Master of the (supposedly resurrected) Knights Templar. Present were the Earl of Kilmarnock and other senior Jacobites. He was initiated by the "Knight of the Red Feather, whose identity he was pledged to conceal, but he may have tried to hint that it was Charles Edward Stuart. There is no documentary proof of any such Masonic lodge. Hund claimed to have been appointed by these "unknown superiors" of the Templars as "commander in chief" (Provincial Grand Master) of the Order of Province VII (Germany). Whether he lied or whether he had been deceived for other purposes, is not known. As proof, he presented an encoded "military chief patent", which remains undeciphered. Hund wrapped himself in silence and in more detailed inquiries repeatedly underlined his discretion with respect to the "unknown superiors", who had supposedly charged him with the revival of the Templar Order in Germany. Hund's relationship to the alleged French Templar Order is unclear, and his surviving diary entries give little information.