During the second half of May, I traveled to Portugal with my family for a two-week vacation. We flew to Lisbon and toured the city for four days. For two of the days, we employed a local guide who first gave us an in-depth tour of Lisbon and later took us to the region around Setubal, a lovely city by the Atlantic Ocean.
Afterwards, we took a train north to Porto and spent four days exploring Portugal’s second largest city. Porto was the commercial hub of Portugal with the Douro River serving as a transportation route for Port wine. We walked around the hilly streets and sampled Portuguese food and wine. Tourism is the largest part of the Portuguese economy, and this was apparent by the many tour guides leading groups of foreigners through the streets.
Our last week in Portugal was spent aboard a Douro River cruise ship. The Douro River flows westward from Spain winding down through the steep Portuguese hills on its way to the Atlantic. The river’s mid-section contains thousands of vine-laden trellises carved into the hills by laborers. The hills are so steep that most of the vines are hand pruned and harvested during the intense August heat. As we traveled eastwardly upriver, the valley temperature rose under clear skies. Once the grapes are picked, they are transported to Quintas (country estates) for processing into wine. The wine is stored in oak barrels and later transferred to Gaia, a city across the Douro River from Porto, for storage and sales.
After we departed the ship, a local guide drove us south to the Lisbon Airport for our return flight to the United States. Along the drive to Lisbon, we stopped in Tomar and toured the Convent of Christ (Convento de Cristo), a former Catholic convent. The convent was originally a 12th-century Order of Poor Knights of the Temple (commonly called Templar Knights) castle. From 711 to 1294, Portugal was controlled by the Moors who were north African Muslims. Christian military forces, like the Templar Knights, eventually defeated and expelled the Moors from Portugal. In the 13th-century, the region around Tomar was controlled by the Templars and the castle served as a Christian defensive system against the Moors.
The Templar Order was dissolved in 1308, and Pope John XXII instituted the Order of Christ. In 1357, Tomar was converted to this new Order. The castle was expanded with more religious buildings where clergy shared the grounds with soldiers. During the 15th-century period of Portuguese exploration under the leadership of Prince Henry the navigator (1417–1450), the castle continued to grow and by the end of the century, expanded into a convent. King John III (1502–1557) demilitarized the order and installed the convent as a religious order based on Bernard of Clairvaux. Renaissance architecture was added during the 16th-century.
After a political crisis with the Catholic Church, the Portuguese government dissolved religious Orders by decree in 1834. The Convent of Christ suffered a decline after the religious personnel departed. In the 20th-century, the Portuguese government funded its restoration and opened the Convent of Christ for public visitations.
Towards the end of our tour, our guide showed us old Templar Knight tombstones. One caught my eye. It was a worn white granite stone rudimentarily etched with two images: a cross and a sword. The images were side-by-side without any words or other drawings. The sword represented the military soldiers of the Templar Knights while the cross represented Jesus Christ’s death by crucifixion. Both images denote instruments used to kill humans. The cross symbolizes Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who died a cruel death and advocated grace over violence. The sword symbolized the Templar Knights crusade against the Islamic religion. Sadly, the followers of Christ killed non-Christians in the name of a divine human who advocated peace. These two symbols placed together on the same headstone was a contradiction.
As I viewed this gravestone, I asked myself, “What would Jesus say to the Templar Knights?” Jesus lived under Roman rule, a pagan empire. Yet, he refused to use violence against the Romans or the Jerusalem Jewish leaders who plotted to kill him. Instead, he preached about the Kingdom and nonviolence; only grace can bring peace.
The Convent of Christ is a hodgepodge of military and religious buildings built over 400 years. Architectural styles vary as one walks these ancient grounds, but one fact carried through the years: post-resurrection, Christians have not always aligned with Christ’s teachings. Christian history contains both sword and cross. The Kingdom starts with a personal change from within that drops the sword and embraces the cross. Only then will people choose gravestones with only a cross.
