Hugh of Champagne was the founder of New Religion

By 1125, Hugh, Count of Champagne (and of Troyes) was in a highly ambiguous situation. On the one hand, he was very probably one of the most successful – if not the most successful – individuals on our planet.

He was de-facto owner of the most sacred religious object in Christianity – Ark of the Covenant and a de-facto founder and Grand Master of a brand-new military religious order – Knights Templar.

His relative, prot;g; and partner – Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux – became one of the most influential (if not the most influential) ecclesiastical lords in the whole Christian world.

On the other hand… he failed to get to the top in a feudal hierarchy – his marriage to Constance, daughter of King Philip I of France did not work out (to put it mildly) and was annulled.

He got thoroughly dissatisfied with both secular (of French and European nobility) and ecclesiastical worlds (being a close friend and partner of Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux he got a very good picture of magnitude of corruption in the Holy Roman Catholic Church). Which has been serving itself – not Christ – for centuries. His creation – order Knights Templar was doing… not exactly great under nominal management of another prot;g; of his – Hugues de Payens.

In short, he was not happy with his life – a radical change was in order. And radical it was. He left his pregnant wife, disinherited his son for an unknown reason. and transferred his titles to his nephew, who became nominal Count of Champagne.

Left for Outremer – and officially joined Knights Templar becoming its Grand Master in everything but official title. It was confirmed a couple of years later when Hugh appeared with the king, of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, in two documents.

But the most important change was a new, secret life that he created for himself. While in France, Hugh practically befriended several Jewish rabbis and thus acquired deep and extensive knowledge of Judaism.

Which allowed him to create a new religion – built around Ark of the Covenant and based upon Jewish religion of Old Testament (with Jews replaced by Templars – the “New Israelites”).

Most likely, he recruited into this religion all members of the team that found Ark of the Covenant and some others – 12 in all. Thus achieving something no one in Christendom could do back then – creating a new religion (essentially a heretical sect) – and getting away with it…