St. Michael of All Angels.

High above Loch Striven, in the parish of Inverchaolain near Dunoon, stands a small Highland chapel dedicated to St. Michael of All Angels. The site is among Argyll's older Christian foundations — a place of pilgrimage and prayer once kept by the Knights Hospitaller, the medieval order of St. John, whose care of churches, hospices and travellers marked these western shores for centuries.

It is from this chapel — its lichen-grown stones, its narrow lancets and its silence — that the International Council of Knights Templar takes its spiritual seat. The Council does not claim medieval succession. It claims, instead, a debt: to the faith preserved in this place, and a duty to carry that faith forward in service to the present age.

Interior, eastern lancet at evensong.

A continuity of care

The Hospitallers were not soldiers first; they were hospitallers — keepers of the sick, the poor and the pilgrim. The Council inherits that emphasis. Our work begins not with the sword but with the welfare centre, the parish team, the chaplain at the bedside, the volunteer at the disaster relief tent.

Stewardship of the chapel

Conservation of St. Michael of All Angels is among the Council's first heritage commitments. We are working to ensure the fabric of the chapel — roof, stonework, windows and burial ground — is preserved for the worship and pilgrimage of generations to come.