Temple Church

The Temple Church was constructed in the twelfth century as the English headquarters for the Knights Templar, an elite order of crusading monks dedicated to protecting pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Its design is distinctively circular, a deliberate choice intended to replicate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which is believed to be the site of the tomb of Christ. When it was consecrated in eleven eighty-five by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, it served as a spiritual sanctuary that aimed to recreate the sanctity of that distant, holiest site right here in London.