Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George
The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, also historically referred to as the Imperial Constantinian Order of Saint George and the Order of the Constantinian Angelic Knights of Saint George, is a dynastic order of knighthood of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Currently, the grand magistry of the order is disputed among the two claimants to the headship of the formerly reigning House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as heirs of the House of Farnese, namely Prince Pedro and Prince Carlo. The order was one of the rare orders confirmed as a religious-military order in the papal bull Militantis Ecclesiae in 1718, owing to a notable success in liberating persecuted Christians in the Peloponnese. Together with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, it is one of a small number of Catholic orders that still have this status today. It is not an order of chivalry under the patronage of the Holy See, but its membership is restricted to practising Catholics.
Although the order is alleged to have been founded in its original form by Constantine the Great in Antiquity and then restored under later Byzantine emperors, the actual origin of the order can be traced to the 16th century, when it was founded by an Albanian noble Engjëlli family. This family, extinct in 1698, claimed to be connected to the Byzantine Komnenos and Angelos dynasties, but such a direct familial connection was referred to several other branches; that lineage does, however, descend from a marriage into the Arianiti family that has several descents from past Byzantine imperial families. Chivalric orders were completely unknown in the Byzantine world, so much of the alleged history of the order was invented much later. Outside the generally recognized line of grand masters from its origin in the 16th century to the present day, there have been many people claiming to be grand masters who have been forgers and title-seekers hoping to gain support for invented lines of descent from ancient and medieval nobility.
History
Origins
The legendary origins of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George trace its foundation to an apocryphal order founded by Constantine the Great. Although it has sometimes been held that the order was restored/created by the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos, any claimed connection between chivalric orders and the Byzantine Empire are pure fantasy, as chivalric orders in the modern Western sense were completely unknown in the Byzantine world. At best, any connection to some ancient group would be excessively indirect and abstracted.The order was actually claimed by Albanian nobles of the Angelo Flavio Comneno family branch in the 16th century, notably Andrea Angelo Flavio Comneno, and his brother Paolo Angelo Flavio Comneno, in 1545. In 1545, the brothers Andrea and Paolo were acknowledged as descendants of the Angeloi emperors by Pope Paul III, this recognition being in part due to their familial connections with the Medici, Orsini, del Balzo and Riargo families. The brothers were also guaranteed the right to inherit territory in the former Byzantine Empire, should such territory be recovered from the Ottomans. Their family remained grand masters of the order until 1698 when Giovanni Andrea II, who also claimed the titles of "Prince of Macedonia", "Duke of Thessaly" and "Count of Drivasto, Durazzo etc." as the last male member of his family, transferred the grand mastership of the order to Francesco Farnese, the duke of Parma.
Outside the generally recognized line of grand masters from its origin in the 17th century to the present day, there have been various claims to the title of grand master by imposters hoping to gain support for invented lines of descent from various Byzantine dynasties.
Farnese family, male primogeniture
Its incorporation as a religious order of the Catholic Church hereditary in the House of Farnese and its heirs, the Bourbons, dates from the transfer to Francesco Farnese on 11 January 1698, an act confirmed in an imperial diploma, "Agnoscimus et notum facimus", of the emperor, Leopold I, dated 5 August 1699, and the apostolic brief, "Sincerae Fidei", issued by Pope Innocent XII on 24 October 1699. These confirmed the succession of the grand magistry to the Farnese family and its heirs as an ecclesiastical office and, crucially, did not tie it to tenure of sovereignty of the Duchy of Parma. Among the first major acts of the Farnese grand magistry were revised, amended and expanded statutes, issued on 25 May 1705 and confirmed in a papal brief dated 12 July 1706. Both these confirmed the requirement that the grand magistry should pass by male primogeniture. Following the order's contribution to Prince Eugene of Savoy's campaign to drive the Turks from the Balkans between 1716 and 1718, Pope Clement XI, a former cardinal protector of the order, confirmed the order as a religious order of the Catholic Church in the bull, "Militantis Ecclesiae", of 27 May 1718.Claim by the House of Two Sicilies
With the death of the last male of the House of Farnese on 30 January 1731, the grand magistry was inherited by Charles, eldest son of Elisabeth Farnese and King Philip V of Spain; Charles also inherited the duchies of Parma and Piacenza from the Farnese. After becoming king of Naples and Sicily in 1734, Charles was forced to surrender Parma to Austria in 1736, but he retained the Constantinian grand magistty and continued to exercise control of the Order even after his younger brother became duke of Parma in 1748. On 16 October 1759, Charles abdicated the grand magistry to his second surviving son, King Ferdinand IV and III of Naples and Sicily. The administration of the order was transferred from Parma to Naples in 1768. although the Order in Parma continued to be under Neapolitan control until 1797 when the estates of the Order were seized by the French.File:Constantinien barcelone.jpg|thumb|Arms of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as grand masters of the Constantinian Order, Cathedral of Barcelona
With the French occupying the kingdom of Naples from 1806, the Order was confined to Sicily but with the expulsion of the French it was not only restored to its former position but continued to function under Ferdinand I and his successor heads of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as a religious military Order with an expanding membership and the addition of many new commanderies. The independence of the Order assured its survival after the unification of Italy, confirmed in a declaration of the Procurator-General of the new kingdom of Italy and an 1871 decision of the highest Italian court. A decree of King Ferdinand dated 8 March 1796, stated: "In his royal person there exists together two very distinct qualities, the one of monarch of the Two Sicilies, and the other of grand master of the illustrious, royal and military Constantinian Order, which though united gloriously in the same person form nonetheless at the same time two separate independent lordships".
Some of the Parmesan nobility had resented the Order being controlled by an absent monarch but when in 1748, Charles III's younger brother Philip succeeded as duke of Parma, he explicitly recognised his brother Charles and later his nephew Ferdinand as grand master in a series of decrees and official acts. Philip's son Ferdinand, after becoming duke of Parma, sent an emissary to the Spanish court to try to persuade the king of Spain to intervene with the king of Naples and Sicily and persuade the latter to give up the grand mastership, but without success.
Separate Parmesan Order from 1817
The Parmesan Constantinian Order was a new foundation, instituted by Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, in 1817 and following her death Charles I, Duke of Lucca, heir to the Bourbon-Parma succession, became duke of Parma under the terms of the Congress of Vienna and assumed the grand mastership which is today claimed by Prince Carlos, Duke of Parma. See the historical note authored by Paolo Conforte, a senior officer of the Parma dynastic order, who maintains that the Parma Order, despite its late foundation, is the successor of the original order; this view was explicitly rejected by the Holy See in 1860 and in 1913 the Holy See did not respond to a request from the Parma ducal family to accord their order similar privileges to those granted to the order of which Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta was grand master.The Order under the House of Two Sicilies
In 1910, Pope Pius X appointed the first of three successive cardinal protectors and, in 1913, approved a series of privileges for the chaplains of the order. In 1915, Pope Benedict XV dedicated the Constantinian chapel in the basilica of Santa Croce al Flaminio, which had been built with donations from the knights, who included Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. In 1916, the pope restored the church of Saint Anthony Abbot to the Order - this church had originally been given to the Constantinian order along with the properties of the religious order of that name in 1777, but had been put under the direction of the archdiocese of Naples in 1861.In 1919, new statutes received papal approval and Cardinal Ranuzzi de' Bianchi was appointed cardinal protector, the last to hold this post. Following the intervention of the grand magistry of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus in 1924, whose grand master, the king of Italy, objected to the awarding of the order to leading Italian noblemen, the Holy See felt the close relationship with Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta might prove an obstacle to settling the Roman question. It was, therefore, decided not to reappoint a successor to Cardinal Ranuzzi de' Bianchi at his death in 1927.