There is an extraordinary, not explainable by rational arguments, attractiveness in the idea of spiritual-knightly, military-monastic service. The image of an unshakably steadfast warrior of Christ, sacrificing himself to fiery faith in the Lord and Mother of God, is sung in famous epic poems and verses; this image is often covered with sublime legends about the intimate, secret knowledge acquired by knights in the East during the era of the Crusades, in which almost all spiritual knightly orders arose. Famed for their military valor, their mysterious, tragic fate, the knights of Christ and the Temple, the hospital and St. John , Saint Lazarus, the Holy Sepulcher, the Sword and many others appear before the reader on the pages of the new book by historian Wolfgang Akunov in the most complex historical collisions, conflicts and interweavings of that era, when peoples and religions, highly spiritual aspirations and political calculations, courage and deceit. This book itself, in a certain sense, continues the centuries-old traditions of knightly literature, with its epic scale and romantic irreconcilability of Good and Evil, Truth and Lies, Light and Darkness, introducing the reader into that unusual world in which prayerful work was equivalent to a military feat, according to maxim: “Let your prayer be like a sword, and the sword like a prayer”...