April 17th, 2000

Mr Rick Joyner
Morningstar Publications
627 Pressley Road,
Charlotte,
N.C. 28217

Dear Mr Joyner

Your publication “Courage that Changed the World”, in which you promote the self-styled “Order of Saint John” headed by “Marquess/Count” Cumbo, has been brought to my attention.

I am sure you are unaware that this so-called ‘Order’ is a modern invention, with no connections whatsoever, other than its assumed name, with the genuine Hospitaller Order founded in the Holy Land, whose only legitimate successor is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (full name, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta).

Enclosed with this letter you will find a copy of my book, The Orders of Saint John, published by the Most Venerable Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of which HM Queen Elizabeth II is Sovereign Head. I should inform you that the claims made by the Cumbo organization to have been ‘recognized’ by the Most Venerable Order are untrue – the fact that he or other members of his ‘Order’ have received letters addressing him by the name and titles they claim does not in any sense imply ‘recognition’, but is merely a mistaken courtesy. The appendix (IV) on self-styled Orders has been updated on the Internet, and can be found (along with a discussion of Mr Cumbo’s ‘Order’) at http://www.chivalricorders.org/orders/index1.htm and then to “self-styled” (index at left).

As a leading member of a Christian organization, I am sure you will deprecate as strongly as I any organization that falsely claims an ancient history and to be the successor to an ancient Christian Order of Chivalry, when it is nothing of the kind.

You should also be aware that the self-styled Prince Paternò (pretended “head of the Royal House of Aragon), with whom Mr Cumbo is associated, is a junior member of an ancient Sicilian noble family that has frequently disavowed his fantasy claim to represent the ancient Crown of Aragon. This claimant’s late father was condemned by the Italian courts (and served a prison sentence) for his activities as well as by the head of his own family. You will find more about Paternò in my book and on my site. There is a vast web of deceit woven around the so-called ‘histories’ of these fantasy claimants and their self-styled ‘Orders’ that have brought many gullible individuals into their circle.

I hope you will receive this letter as friendly advice to a fellow Christian who has been grievously deceived, and is thus unwittingly misleading many people who look to him for guidance.

I remain,

Yours sincerely
 
 

Guy Stair Sainty

"The self-styled Orders of Saint John" which was previously available at http://www.chivalricorders.org/orders/self-styled/selfsty1.htm

His main site is ALMANACH DE LA COUR

http://www.ChivalricOrders.org/orders/contents.htm

The following URL's were gathered earlier in 1999. There are many informative quotes from the links, but the links given  are not linked from here since the world wide web changes often enough. All are directly related to the Knights of Templar and Malta, and some on Celts. For those noted that were related to Merlin, please go here.

The Orthodox Knights public vow includes these statements:
"AS A MEMBER OF THE RELIGIOUS BODY, I PROMISE TO BE FAITHFUL AND LOYAL TO THE IDEALS OF THE
SOVEREIGN ORDER OF THE ORTHODOX KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER OF SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM." and
"I WILL WEAR ON MY PERSON THE MALTESE CROSS OF EIGHT POINTS, TO REMIND ME
CONSTANTLY OF MY RELIGIOUS VOWS, OF ALWAYS BEARING IN MY HEART THE CROSS
OF JESUS CHRIST, ADORNED WITH THE VIRTUES THAT ATTEND IT."

Found in full here: http://web.mit.edu/redingtn/www/ecole/vow.html

They state: "The Orthodox Order knights men and women from all Christian denominations;
however, it is closely affiliated with the Eastern Orthodox Church, and is under the spiritual protection of Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow."

http://web.mit.edu/redingtn/www/ecole/oksj.html
 

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Here is the web site for the New York based ORTHODOX KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER OF SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM:

http://members.tripod.com/~OstJ/index.html

They too state that they are "Under the Spiritual Protection of His Holiness Alexy II
The Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia...The Order is a
religious, lay, military, knightly, chivalric, and noble Order."

Under 'membership' on the same page, they state: "The Order is in NO way associated with Freemasonry or the Knights Templar."

----

Light & Boston Ltd  is a private business that specializes in the manufacture of
regalia and insignia for Masonic and other civil orders.

Their site includes sections for ordering specific regalia for specific groups.
For one group's regalia http://www.cix.co.uk/~lightboston/knights.htm, the following description is present:

"THE UNITED RELIGIOUS, MILITARY AND MASONIC ORDERS OF THE TEMPLE AND OF ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM, PALESTINE, RHODES AND MALTA, IN ENGLAND AND WALES AND PROVINCES OVERSEAS REGALIA", and " Other names known by: Knights Templar and Knights of Malta - Knights Templar - K T" and, "A candidate for Installation into Knighthood will have been exalted into Royal Arch Masonry and will hold a Christian faith."

----
All above sites share the same requirement in regalia--for instance, the Maltese Cross: "The Knights are now know as the Knights of Malta. Their eight-pointed cross became known as the Maltese cross.", quoted from the following history page: http://web.idirect.com/~malta/knights.htm

An additional historical account is here:

http://www.io.com/~patrik/malta.htm

AND THERE'S MORE:

The following sites all claim to be Christian knight sites:

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/9113/

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/4949/

We have skimmed through these sites below, in order to bring the reader relevant quotes and an accurate description of the sites.

The following link is anti-Rome Church and protests the exclusion of documents that would commonly be referred to as the 'gnostic gospels' from the Cannon. The author denies the resurrection of Jesus and claims that He survived the crucifixion and had children. He states that the true meaning of 'communion' and the 'quest of the Holy Grail'-- is supposedly Jesus' 'bloodline' and the search for that.

In part three, this article claims King Arthur was not a fictional character but somehow related to Jesus in this bloodline. Also: " From the 1100s, the powerful Knights Templars and their cathedrals posed an enormous threat to the 'male-only' Church by bringing the heritage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene to the fore in the public domain" -By this the author means the true 'apostolic succession' that the Rome Church worked hard to conceal--Jesus's bloodline heirs:

 
"The cardinals knew that their whole establishment would tumble if the Messianic descendants gained the upper hand. They had to be crushed! And so the brutal Inquisition was implemented-a hideous persecution of all who dissented from the rule of the bishops."

The author ends with something about y2K millennium: http://www.peg.apc.org/~nexus/holygrail.html

The author claims the following credentials, including: Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm, KCD, is an internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist. He holds the position of Grand Prior of the Celtic Church's Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba. The article is linked from a highly 'New Age' Nexus site--UFO articles, you name it.

THIS group refers to one of the books by the same author, and has a swastika (Hitler's symbol) on the front page:

http://user.fastinet.net/kalogonis/index/holy.htm

These words are at the bottom of their home page: CONCLUSION:
 

"The Celtic Churches are the spiritual descendants of the original Church of the Celtic, the Primitive Orthodox and Catholic Church of, first, the Celts and later, the Anglo-Saxons. We are aware of a call from God to proclaim and live out the special message of Celtic Christianity, a faith both earthy and exalted, in harmony with nature and committed to the highest level of scholarship. We are especially committed to living out the reality of being the Mystical Body of Christ in the World as a family. The new Celts are less members of an organization than brothers and sisters, one in faith, one in love, one in Christ Jesus, in other words: the Church. We are called to be a "Voice crying in the wilderness", we are called to the prophetic task of declaring the Good News of Christ in a world in love with self-will run riot, death, and distraction. People are desperately hungry for God, but due to a variety of factors, including poor teaching by what passes for churches, the people for whom Christ died are afraid to meet him."

http://indigo.ie/~lifecork/html/celticdistinct.htm is the address of this one.

They've also got a background with the words "CHRIST IS MY DRUID" repeated/tiled across it.

On the Celts

Celts was the name applied by the ancient Greek writers to a group of barbarian peoples who inhabited central and western Europe. They settled in parts of France, northern Spain, and crossed the British Isles (8th and 9th centuries, B.C.) Their European dialects were later classified as Celtic Languages, and they had their own art and culture. This culture was largely extinguished by the onslaught of the Romans and Germanic peoples in the late 2nd century. Only along the Atlantic fringe of Europe did Celtic culture survive in a distinct form. (this information from typical Encyclopedia sources)

However, there are educated people who claim they have evidence that would disagree with the encyclopedia rendition!

To quote:

"But there is now clear evidence that the ancient Celts of these islands are a recent invention. No one in Britain or Ireland called themselves "Celtic" before 1700, and the supposed mass Iron Age migrations of the Celtic race from Europe never occurred. The "canonical" story of the
island Celts is a romantic fantasy, and its origins are to be found not in the distant Iron Age but in the political and cultural conflicts of 18th-century Europe."

by Simon James, "The Guardian," London, March 27, 1999. This is excerpted from James' book THE ATLANTIC CELTS: ANCIENT PEOPLE OR MODERN INVENTION? University of Wisconsin Press and British Museum Press (The entire article is in World Press Review magazine, July 1999, pp.16-17).

Simon James has a web site on Celts, etc.: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~drk0stj/celtindx.htm

IF the Celts are a distinct ethnic group and culture, starting even before the time of Christ, it is not this author's intention to stereotype them as antiChristian, or that they did not have hereos of the faith amongst their ethnic group.

However, whatever happened in history, it is obvious that many of today's 'culture' of modern druids strongly identify with them and have encorporated many of their non-Christian or 'mixture-Christian' symbols into their religion.

The following is a brief description of information gathered from ex-Wicca sources, as it relates the Celts. (Wicca, or pagans, are also known for being Druid):
 

" The Celts started as part of the Dravidians from India. Part of their religious practice is to move westward…The religious ideas of the Dravidians are foundational in the Masons, Celts, Egyptians, and the other what we call pagan religions. The Wiccans (white Witch) hide in Christianity and one statement I read in that material I had was about how the Wiccans were glad to see the way the some Christian churches and ministers were adopting the ways of Wicca. They truly believe there is no real conflict with Christianity."

New Agers and the like are apt to 'incorporate' Christianity or an ethnic group or anything else (including Jesus as 'just a great teacher or psychic') into their religion, and then call it 'theirs'. They practice no discernment and encourage others to also practice no discernment. We as Christians are a 'separate people'--Separate onto Christ. No ethnic group or made-up ethnic group, with it's non-Christian or psuedo-Christian symbols, should be held as over and above our Christianity, or as equal to Biblical inspiration.

Today it has been observed that this is occurring. If you doubt me, read some of the recent--I mean RECENT books that espouse Celtic ways and claim to teach the 'prophetic' at the same time, while being loaded with enough New Age/Druid stuff to make one gag....(Case in point: "Prophetic Lifestyle and the Celtic Way - Discover the daily awareness of God that sustained the Celtic church",  written by Andy & Jane Fitz-gibbon and published in 1997. Includes many other book recommendations on the back including a plug for Morningstar--Their website is at: http://www.icmi.org)

My caution is:  Not everything that claims to be 'Christian' is really Christian; not everyone or everything that teaches 'the prophetic way' is doing so without being compromised by definite non-Christian or anti-Christian influence.  BE ON THE ALERT! (1 Peter 5:6-11)

Bob and Teri Earl