Order of St. John

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There are several orders of chivalry called the Order of Saint John, which claim as their origins the Knights Hospitaller Christian crusading order. These are first and foremost the:

Contents

[edit] Origins

Merchants from the ancient Marine Republic of Amalfi obtained from the Caliph of Egypt authorization to build a church and convent in Jerusalem, the Abbey of Santa Maria Latina, in the middle of the 11th century but the hospital to which this was attached, to care for pilgrims of any religious faith or race was not established until circa 1080. This hospital gradually achieved autonomy under the guidance of its first known Master, Blessed Gérard, an independence formalized by Pope Paschal II in the Bull of 15 February 1113. This Bull gave the Hospital the right to elect its superiors and marks the real foundation of the Hospital as a lay Religious Order of the Roman Catholic Church. The vocation of the Hospitallers was characterized by a veneration for the poor, whom they regarded as their “lords”. This was expressed in the commitments to care for poor pilgrims to Jerusalem when they were sick and to bury them when they died.[citation needed]

The establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and the ongoing threat from Arab forces intent on recapturing Jerusalem (which they had occupied from 637 until 1099) obliged the Order to develop a military wing, which is first discernible in the second quarter of the twelfth century, was fully formed by the 1160s and was recognized by the papacy circa 1180. The Order thus added the task of defending the faith to that of its hospitaller mission, carrying out this work with the participation of not only the professed brothers but also professed sisters. The Order's robe was simple and adorned with a white cross, which, perhaps from the first and certainly by 1200 had become the white eight-pointed Cross that is still its symbol today. Precise rules for the treatment of the patients were laid out in the Rule and attested to by contemporary witnessese, including specific requirements for the changing of bedding (weekly), the sterilisation of medical instruments using vinegar and the consumption of minimum quantities of eggs, fruit and meat in the weekly diet. The brothers and sisters of the Hospital ran an establishment which was staffed by doctors, most of whom seem to have been western trained, perhaps at the great medical school at Salerno, and nursing servants. With the first loss of Jerusalem to Saladdin in 1187 the Order re-established itself in Acre, building a new hospital of similar size in the city; this continued to be maintained after the knights returned to Jerusalem with its recapture by the Christians in 1244.[citation needed]

[edit] The Move To Cyprus and Rhodes

When the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, at Acre, fell in 1291, the Order settled first, briefly, in Cyprus, and by 1306 made its first incursion on the island of Rhodes, where it was fully established by 1310, under Grand Master Fra' Foulques de Villaret.[citation needed] Unlike the Templars the knights of the hospital now had a two-fold mission; the maintenance of their hospitaller services with a great hospital at their headquarters and a few smaller ones established in their principal European provinces and the protection of Christian shipping, leading to the establishment of a powerful naval force. The generosity of benefactors and Order's freedom from episcopal jurisdiction enabled it to build up considerable land holdings across Western Europe, most notably in France (from where the majority of knights were drawn), Spain and Italy. The dissolution of the Templars was followed by the grant of the Templar properties in France, Great Britain, Castile, Germany and Italy to the Hospitallers, and although the Order was unable to reach an accord with the Byzantine Empire which claimed the Island of Rhodes, it exercised full sovereignty over the island.

The institutions of the Order were grouped in seven Langues (Tongues): Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Spain, England (with Wales, Scotland and Ireland) and Germany. In 1492 the Spanish Langue divided, when Castile and Portugal split off from the Langue of Aragon and constituted the eighth Langue. Each Langue included Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks and Commanderies - the latter being land holdings which provided an income to a knight commander and one or more companions, as well as servants, while one third of the income was sent to maintain the Order's headquarters. Individual members would bequeath their personal wealth to the Order and families established commanderies which would be held by family members who were subsequently received as knights.

The Order was governed by its Grand Master and Council, minted its own money and maintained diplomatic relations with other States. The senior positions of the Order, grand commander, hospitaller, marshal, treasurer, admiral, turcopilier, and grand bailiff were given to representatives of different Langues, while the grand master was elected for life.[citation needed]

[edit] The Move To Malta

After six months of siege and fierce combat against the fleet and army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the Knights were forced to surrender Rhodes in 1523 and left the island with full military honors. The Order's government took temporary residence in Italy until 1530, when Grand Master Fra' Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle Adam took possession of the island of Malta, granted to the Order by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as King of Sicily, with the approval of Pope Clement VII. It was established that the Order should remain neutral in any war between Christian nations and, unlike its possession of Rhodes, Malta was held as feudal fief. In 1565 the Knights, led by Grand Master Fra' Jean de la Vallette (after whom the capital of Malta, Valletta, was named), defended the island for more than three months during the Great Siege by the Turks. The fleet of the Order, then one of the most powerful in the Mediterranean, contributed to the ultimate destruction of the Ottoman naval power in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Order's navy continued to provide an opportunity for service in its galleys, a requirement imposed on all knights, and many knights of Malta served with distinction in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese navies as well as those of the Italian states.[citation needed]

[edit] The Protestant Reformation

The Reformation had an enormous and dramatic effect on the Order's fortunes. The first knights to adopt the Protestant faith were German members of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg who nonetheless continued to maintain their chivalric institution as an autonomous organisation under the protection of the Elector of Brandenburg. Elsewhere in Germany the Order continued to thrive, but considerably weakened by the loss of its members in much of the east and north. In Scandinavia the knights were expelled and the Order's property seized but in England the Order managed to hold on to its possession until 1536, when the refusal of the knights to submit to the King's demands led to the deaths of two members of the Order. The commandery of Torphichen in Scotland was lost to the Order when its commander obtained the grant of the Order'slands to himself, along with a peerage, in return for a large payment to the royal exchequer. At various times over the next two centuries there were occasional overtures on the part of the Protestant German knights who, in the 18th century, even paid intermitten financial tribute (responsions) to the Order in Malta when the King of Prussia attempted to negotiate their reintegration as part of the Order. The Order’s claim to sovereignty and the precedence of the Grand Master entitled it to claim the power to send and receive ambassadors, the Grand Master’s envoy being accorded precedence ahead of that of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at the Spanish Court. In the middle of the eighteenth century the claims to sovereignty were emphasized by the adoption of the closed royal crown by Grand Master Manuel de Pinto Fonseca (1741-1773) and when Emperor Paul I of Russia was elected Grand Master he commissioned the manufacture of a grand magistral crown that still survives today. The arms of the Grand Master are today surmounted by the enclosed royal crown as a visible symbol of his sovereign rank.

[edit] The Departure From Malta

Prior to her death in 1796, Catherine II of Russia (Catherine the Great) extended Russian protection to the Order, as Russia's Mediterranean ambitions encouraged an alliance that would benefit both the Empress and the Order. In 1798, France, under Napoleon Bonaparte. proceeded to besiege the islands of Malta and Gozo, and as the knights were prohibited from raising weapons against other Christians and the majority of knights were French, there was considerable discord as to how a successful defence might be made - while the differences among the French knights was understandable there was little excuse for the betrayal by the Spanish knights, who conspicuously failed in their duty to the Order. After a brief siege the Grand Master surrendered the island to Napoleon, much to the fury of senior members in Russia (where many French knights had fled after the French Revolution) and other parts of Europe and indeed to the island's overlord, the King of the Two Sicilies.

The French occupation, however, was short-lived and the island captured by the British fleet commanded by Horatio Nelson; the British quickly established themselves there and although promising to return it by the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, organised a referendum which enabled them to claim 99% support for their continued occupation. The Order's grand master, Hompesch, was deposed and Emperor Paul I of Russia elected in his place, despite being neither Catholic nor celibate - the Pope, however, never recognised this election.[citation needed] With Paul's murder in 1801 the new Emperor, Alexander I of Russia declined to assume the Grand Magistral title and ordered the Council of the Order to support the election of a new Grand Master. Although the first choice was rejected the Pope was able to appoint a new Grand Master, Tommasi, who was recognised by almost the entire Order, including the Russians (but excluding the Spanish; the King of Spain claimed the grand mastership for himself and set up a separate Order that was only reunited with the Order of Malta at the end of the 19th century). The collapse of the Bonapartist Empire in 1814-15 allowed the knights to return to their lands in Italy and Portugal but their vast properties in France were lost forever.[citation needed] The Order's Spanish possessions were returned to the new Spanish Order after the restoration of King Ferdinand but lost during the liberal political reforms of the 19th century, as were the Order's possessions in Portugal. Admissions to the two Russian Grand Priories ceased in 1811, following the decision of the Emperor to take back into state ownership the properties his father had endowed it with and force the holders of family commanderies to reacquire them as private property but with a large payment to the imperial treasury. Those who had been received prior to 1811 were permitted to continue to wear their cross and, during the next century, permission was given by the head of the Imperial Household for six descendants of commanders of the Order to wear the cross of the Order, as a memorial to their ancestors. After having temporarily resided in Messina, Catania and Ferrara, in 1834 the Order settled definitively in Rome, where it owns, with extraterritoriality status, the Magistral Palace in Via Condotti 68 and the Magistral Villa on the Aventine Hill.[citation needed] The Order was governed by Lieutenant Grand Masters from 1806 until 1887 when the post of Grand Master was re-established by Pope Leo XIII. The loss of Malta, and the abandonment of any attempt to recover sovereignty over Malta or another island base led the Order's focus to return to its original mission: service to the sick and the poor.

[edit] Sovereignty of the Order

The Order enjoys the status of a sovereign personality in international law and has reciprocal diplomatic relations with some 103 states, as well as Permanent Observer status at the United Nations, the UN organisations at Geneva, Vienna and Rome (the FAO), UNESCO, an Official Representatives to the EU, and to six states as well as Representatives to the Council of Europe, UNIDROIT, the International Institute of Human Rights and the International Committee of Military Medicine. The Grand Master enjoys the privileges accorded a foreign head of state in Italy and the Grand Chancellor that of a head of government.[citation needed]

[edit] Recognized Chivalric Orders of Saint John

The original Roman Catholic order is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta. It is also referred to as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or simply the Order of Malta. With the Protestant Reformation, some knights accepted Protestant theology but continued to recognize the grand masters of the Roman Catholic order. By the 1800s, Protestant monarchies severed the ties between these knights and the Roman Catholic order and established orders under their respective monarchies. These orders are:

  • The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (United Kingdom)
  • Balley Brandenburg des Ritterlichen Ordens Sankt Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem (Germany) {and its non-German commanderies)
  • Johanniter Orde in Nederland
  • Johanniterorden i Sverige

[edit] Self-Styled Orders of Saint John

There are many other organizations that call themselves one variation or another of the name “Order of St. John”. These other organizations have no historical connection with the original Roman Catholic order or with a monarchy, in spite of their assertions of such connections. Due to the well-documented histories of the recognized orders and the demise of the Russian Grand Priory, these other organizations typically claim to have a pedigree via the Russian Grand Priory. In fact, none exists. These organizations are typically referred to as the “self-styled orders” and are, in effect “mimic orders” with no standing as Orders of Knighthood.

In the early 1960s one of the proponents of a mimic Order met former King Peter II of Yugoslavia and induced him to join his order. By 1964 King Peter II had formed his own order but as a deposed monarch living in exile he had no such powers, particularly seen the limitations of the former Yugoslav Royal Constitution did not confer the authority to "validate" a foreign Order even had he been reigning. Hence this claim is without merit. Following King Peter II's death in 1970, his son, Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia, stated that he does not recognize the validity of any organization claiming to stem from the constitution granted by his father.[citation needed]

The organization founded by King Peter II has splintered into several different entities, each claiming to be the successor of this or of the supposed survival of the Russian Grand Priories. None of these can justifiably claim to be successors or continuations of either the long extinct Russian Grand Priories or of the organisation established briefly by the late King Peter II.[citation needed]

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