I think the root of the false doctrine or practices of the Templars must be looked for in the West.
The Templars were charged with having an idol which the Chronicles of S. Denys (which terminate 1461) describe as “an old skin embalmed and polished, in which the Templar places his very vile faith and trust, and in which he confidently believes: and it has in the sockets eyes of carbuncle shining with the brightness of the sky.” Abraham Bzov, in his continuation of the “Church History” of Baronius, quotes a charge brought by the Italian bishops against the Templars, to this effect: “They have a certain head, the face pale like that of a man, with black curled hair, and round the neck a gilded ornament, which indeed belonged to no saint, and this they adored, making prayers before it.” And one of the questions asked by the Pope of the witnesses was, “whether they had not a skull or some sort of image, to which they rendered divine homage?” So also the Chronicle of Meaux states, that on the first day of the General Council of the Templars, a head with a white beard, which had belonged to a former Grand Master of the Order, was set at midnight before the altar in a chapel, covered with silken robes and precious stuffs. Mass was sung before daylight,
