Temple Church

Built by the Knights Templar as its English headquarters, The Temple Church is a Royal unique church in the City of London situated between Fleet Street and the River Thames. On February 10th, 1185, Jerusalem's Patriarch Heraclius dedicated it. It served as the royal treasury during King John (1199–1216), with the assistance of the Knights Templar, who were the forerunners of modern international banks. The Inner Temple and Middle Temple Inns of Court, the foundations of the English legal profession, now jointly own it. It is renowned for its stone effigies from the 13th and 14th centuries as well as for being a round church, a common design element for Knights Templar churches.

Before the church was built, the Knights Templar in London gathered at a location in High Holborn in a building that was first built by Hugues de Payens in the middle of the 12th century (the site had been historically the location of a Roman temple in Conidium, [citation needed] now known as London). By the 1160s, the site had become too small due to the order's fast growth, so it was purchased by the order in order to build a larger monastery complex there as their English headquarters. The new property initially included a church as well as homes, military training grounds, and recreation areas for the military brethren and novices, who were forbidden from entering the City without the Temple master's consent.

German incendiary bombs ignited the Round Church's roof on May 10th, 1941, and the fire swiftly spread to the nave and chapel. The Purbeck marble columns in the chancel fractured due to the high heat, along with the organ and all the timber components of the church, including the Victorian modifications. The vault was still partially supported by these columns, but they were declared unsound and replaced with an exact replica. The replacement columns mimicked the architectural peculiarity of the original columns' slight outward lean. On the same night, the Master's House was destroyed by fire. It was discovered that parts of the 17th-century repairs performed by Wren had survived in storage throughout the reconstruction by the architect Walter Godfrey, and these were reinstalled in their original placements. November 1958 saw the rededication of the church.

The church was initially used, among other things, for Templar initiation rituals. New recruits entered the Temple through the western door at daybreak during the ritual in England. The initiates made their monastic vows of piety, chastity, poverty, and obedience after entering the circular nave. The fact that initiation ceremony specifics were always kept a highly guarded secret ultimately led to the Order's demise as rumours and chitchat about potential blasphemous applications circulated. The adversaries of the Order, including King Philip IV of France, used and profited from these rumours in order to create a justification for the suppression of the order.

Regular church services are still held at the Temple Church today, including Sunday morning Mattins and Holy Communion. Additionally, it performs weddings, but exclusively for Inner and Middle Temple members. The Temple Church functions as a private chapel for the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple.