After conducting a rather complicated operation, George Gregory Buttigieg has a well-deserved break to smoke a cigar and talk to Bianca Caruana about how he came to be who he is today against a backdrop of intimidating antique gynaecological instruments
George is a 55-year-old obstetrician and gynaecologist with a strong interest in writing and also in the Order of St John in Jerusalem. Whilst not being an ambassador to the order, in the operating theatre and while doing his duties as the Vice President of the Maltese Branch of the Sovereign Military Order of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, George is a family man.
The publication of his latest book puts George in the same field alongside well-known author Dan Brown. George Gregory Buttigieg began working on his novels "Of Craft And Honour" and "A Templar’s Chronicles" before The Da Vinci Code was published. “Dan Brown tapped into the same sources to bring out his fascinating story whereas, long before him, I had begun trying to get the opposite view across. In other words, I sought to disassociate the Templars from the unproven nonsense which was used, with a terribly confusing result for the public on Christianity. A number of established international Templar experts expressed their appreciation of my work in private correspondence,” Buttigieg says.
The book was started many years ago when he decided to create an attractive package to stress that the Templars were human and full of faults, but collectively dedicated to the work of a “holy warfare” as were other military monastic orders. George also included controversial elements of freemasonry in his novel.
“I was about to destroy the book one year before publication because of the possible effect of the freemasonry content and its interpretation in Catholic Malta. I am not a freemason but a student. My knowledge is purely book-wise, although my interest has been around for many years. I am in no way a spokesman for the brotherhood. The freemasonry element was drawn in because there is a specific Templar grade in freemasonry which on delving deep is not a continuation of the original Templars.”
His book is about an orthodox Maltese lodge fully recognised by the United Grand Lodge of the United Kingdom. It veers into criminal behaviour following the footsteps of the notorious Propaganda Due lodge in Italy which had toppled Arnoldo Forlani’s government.
George tells me something which he had not exposed to anyone about the main character of his book, Henry Tonna Black, a much respected Professor of Law at the University of Malta. “I feel that Henry portrays a side of me in his attitude towards freemasonry since I continually evaluate freemasonry in its role of affecting world events and world history. Henry is a completely fictitious character who wants the brotherhood to be pure and elevated man, but he ends up greatly hurt because of man’s fickle nature.”
Not finding it strange that his book is being compared by some critics to Dan Brown’s, he was surprised by the contrast that has been brought forth. George had voraciously studied the history of the Templars, including the warped aspect that links the Templars to occult knowledge, including fanciful ideas about the so-called Christ-Magdalene bloodline.
I was curious to know whether he thinks his book would have received the success it has if Dan Brown had not published The Da Vinci Code. George said, “Frankly, I do not think that the foreign interest which one gleans from surfing the net would have been present at all had the Code not hit the world by storm. It is also quite possible that the aspect of the book dealing with freemasonry was in itself a story stimulant to readership.”
Recently published letters have seen debates as to whether George may have had access to otherwise inaccessible historical documents as a result of him being an ambassador to the Order and knighted by the SMOM.
He thinks for a moment, and since the publication of the Chinon Parchment had proven his hypothesis of the Templars correct, he finds it exciting but also astonishing that anyone who studies the historical facts deeply could have thought otherwise. “I will be seeing the Chinon Parchment for the first time in January as ambassador to deliver Malta’s Christmas greetings. I have also invested much money in many books of research and many libraries around the world as well as the internet, which provide good excuses to escape the humdrum of everyday life. So, to answer your question, I have not been privileged to view any ‘secret’ documents.”
His wife Annabelle and his two daughters rightly feel as though his writing takes time away from their relationship but are also proud of George for doing as well as he has. “I value my family’s opinion of my writing and they are generally forced to listen to the plots I come up with,” George says. “Both Nicole and Gabby, my daughters, read my work subjectively and always say it’s good so as not to upset me.”
His wife on the other hand, is “a cruel mistress” but he feels it is great that she is more objective in her criticism. It is exactly what he needs and greatly values her comments, however they do not agree on everything. “I remember my wife and I were in a café talking about the cover of my book. We disagreed upon where the image of the devil should be placed and I shouted out, ‘I want the devil to be placed here!’ A woman suddenly turned around and stared at me in shock.”
Since George is a gynaecologist, I take the risk to ask him where he met his wife and how he came to choose his profession. He laughs: “We were both 17 and we met at Ghar id-Dud in Sliema which used to be the place to be for young people in those days. I guess you could say it was love at first sight and I have never looked back since. As for my choice, I was hell-bent on becoming a psychiatrist and going into full-time research.
“After qualifying in Glasgow, I began to realise how psychiatry was narrowing my horizons regarding the physical aspects. When Annabelle was pregnant with Nicky, she went for her first antenatal appointment and when I heard Nicky’s heartbeat, I realised how beautiful it was. It was at that moment that I decided to go into obstetrics and gynaecology.”
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