The Knights Templar in Abruuzo Voyager - Puntata 12 maggio 2008

Ever since we discovered some very early Christian symbols carved into the stones of our house I have been interested in investigating the early Christians in Abruzzo.

This 30 min film (in Italian) presents a fascinating, if far fetched scenario where some Knights Templar bought a sacred ark from the Holy Land to Abruzzo and handed it to Pietro da Morrone who was at that time living in various remote hermitages in the Abruzzo mountains including one only a mile from our house.

from Wikipedia

According to tradition, Pietro Angelerio was born to parents Angelo Angelerio and Maria Leone in a town called Sant'Angelo Limosano, in the Kingdom of Sicilia (Sicily). Sant'Angelo Limosano is now part of Provincia di Campobasso, in Molise, Italy.
After his father's death he began working in the fields. His mother Maria was a key figure in Pietro's spiritual development: she imagined a different future for her deeply beloved son than becoming just a farmer or a shepherd. From the time he was a child, he showed great intelligence and love for others. He became a Benedictine monk at Faifoli in the Diocese of Benevento when he was 17. He showed an extraordinary disposition toward asceticism and solitude, and in 1239 retired to a solitary cavern on the mountain Morrone, hence his name (Peter of Morrone). Five years later he left this retreat, and went with two companions to a similar cave on the even more remote Mountain of Maiella in the Abruzzi region of central Italy, where he lived as strictly as possible according to the example of St. John the Baptist. Accounts exist of the severity of his penitential practices.