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Charles Kos asks why Egyptian temples thrill people who ignore old churches at home. He wants those buildings studied as puzzles. Catholicism, he says, is mostly what Rome already practiced, with Christianity laid over it, and the churches are barely written about. They are assumed to face sunrise, a habit he links to older solar reverence, but each points its own way and stresses its own theme, sometimes dawn on a saint’s feast. London’s round Temple Church, which he ties to the Templars, favors an eastern dome over the long western cross. Smaller churches still hold pagan looking things. In a once German part of Poland he reports antlers by the door and a wooden Christ that seemed an older god pierced by the carving. Another German scene places the holy household under a pictured pair that does not match a usual deity. Local divinities had to enter the art or communities would split, and the mix lasted for centuries. He also wonders whether builders who boasted of Solomon’s pattern hid messages in church stone.
Key points
- Kos says Catholicism keeps much of Rome’s earlier religion under a Christian surface, and that the churches are barely studied.
- Their orientations differ, and some aim toward dawn on a saint’s feast rather than obeying one eastern rule.
- Round Templar churches are explained as an emphasis on the dome familiar from eastern Christian buildings.
- Carvings he describes in Poland and Germany look to him like older gods mixed into Jesus and the holy household.
- Local deities had to be absorbed to avoid a social rupture, and he suspects masons may have set further ideas into the walls.
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Short quotes
For example, they might point to the sunrise of a birthday of a particular saint.
Charles Kos, Pagan traces in old churches
His example of the shifting orientations is a church aimed at dawn on the feast day of a saint. Watch at 1:58
And there was an edifice of Jesus, except he wasn't Jesus.
Charles Kos, Pagan traces in old churches
In a Polish church the carved figure was presented as Jesus yet read to him as some earlier deity. Watch at 4:49
it's possible that Masons were employed to build churches
Charles Kos, Pagan traces in old churches
He floats the idea that masons hired for these buildings may also have left encoded meanings in them. Watch at 7:05
Video by Charles Kos. Watch on YouTube.