Sovereign Military Order of Malta
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of a military, chivalric, and noble nature. Though it possesses no national territory, the order is considered a sovereign entity under international law.
The Order traces its institutional continuity with the Knights Hospitaller, a chivalric order that was founded about 1099 by the Blessed Gerard in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The order is led by an elected prince and grand master. Its motto is Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum.
The government of the Sovereign Order of Malta has a similar structure to national state governments. However, it also includes specific features associated with its nature as a lay religious order, as well as particular terminology evolved from nine centuries of history.
The Order's membership includes about 13,500 Knights, Dames and Chaplains. Thirty-three of these are professed religious Knights of Justice. Until the 1990s, the highest classes of membership, including officers, required proof of noble lineage. More recently, a path was created for Knights and Dames of the lowest class to be specially elevated to the highest class, making them eligible for office in the order.
The Order's modern-day role is largely focused on providing humanitarian assistance and assisting with international humanitarian relations. The Order employs about 52,000 doctors, nurses, auxiliaries and paramedics assisted by 100,000 volunteers in more than 120 countries, assisting children, homeless, disabled, elderly, and terminally ill people, refugees, and people with leprosy around the world without distinction of ethnicity or religion. Through its worldwide relief corps, Malteser International, the order aids victims of natural disasters, epidemics and war.
The Order maintains diplomatic relations with 115 states, enters into treaties, and issues its own passports, coins and postage stamps. Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality, and it maintains embassies in other countries. The three principal officers are counted as citizens. The Order has been a United Nations General Assembly observer since 1994, granted in view of its "long-standing dedication in providing humanitarian assistance and its special role in international humanitarian relations"; the same category is held by other non-state entities such as the International Olympic Committee and International Committee of the Red Cross.
Name and insignia
The Order of Malta comprises a large number of Priories, Sub-priories, and National Associations around the world, but there also exist various organizations with similar-sounding names that are unrelated to the Order. These include a number of mimic orders, such as masonic and non-Catholic organizations.The Order has two flags: the State Flag is rectangular with a red background, upon which there is a white Latin cross. The Flag of the Order's works is rectangular with a red background upon which there is a white eight-pointed Maltese cross.
The Grand Master displays a rectangular flag with a red background, upon which there is a white eight-pointed Maltese cross, encircled by the Collar of the Order and surmounted by a crown.
The coat of arms of the Order, gules a cross argent, is most often depicted on an oval shield surrounded by a rosary, all superimposed on a white eight-pointed cross over a princely mantle surmounted by a crown.
In ecclesiastical heraldry of the Catholic Church, the Order of Malta is one of only two orders whose insignia may be displayed in a clerical coat of arms. The shield is surrounded with a silver rosary for Professed Knights, or for others the ribbon of their rank. Some members may also display the Maltese cross behind their shield instead of the ribbon.
To protect its heritage against fraud, the Order has legally registered sixteen versions of its names and emblems in some one hundred countries.
History of the Order of Saint John
Founding
The birth of the Knights Hospitaller dates back to around 1048. Merchants from the ancient Marine Republic of Amalfi obtained from the Caliph of Egypt the authorisation to build a church, convent, and hospital in Jerusalem, to care for pilgrims of any religious faith or race. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem – the monastic community that ran the hospital for the pilgrims in the Holy Land – became independent under the guidance of its founder, the religious brother Gerard.With the Papal bull Pie postulatio voluntatis dated 15 February 1113, Pope Paschal II approved the foundation of the Hospital and placed it under the aegis of the Holy See, granting it the right to freely elect its superiors without interference from other secular or religious authorities. By virtue of the Papal bull, the hospital became an order exempt from the control of the local church. All the Knights were religious, bound by the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
The constitution of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Crusades obliged the order to take on the military defence of the sick, the pilgrims, and the captured territories. The order thus added the task of defending the faith to that of its hospitaller mission.
As time went on, the order adopted the white, eight-pointed Cross that is still its symbol today. The eight points represent the eight beatitudes that Jesus pronounced in his Sermon on the Mount.
Cyprus
When the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land fell after the Siege of Acre in 1291, the order settled first in Cyprus.Rhodes
In 1310, led by Grand Master Fra' Foulques de Villaret, the knights regrouped on the island of Rhodes. From there, the defense of the Christian world required the organization of a naval force, so the Order built a powerful fleet and sailed the eastern Mediterranean, fighting battles for the sake of Christendom, including Crusades in Syria and Egypt.In the early 14th century, the institutions of the Order and the knights who came to Rhodes from every corner of Europe were grouped according to the languages they spoke. The first seven such groups, or Langues – from Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England, and Germany – became eight in 1492, when Castile and Portugal were separated from the Langue of Aragon. Each Langue included Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks, and Commanderies.
The Order was governed by its Grand Master, the Prince of Rhodes, and its Council. From its beginning, independence from other nations granted by pontifical charter and the universally recognized right to maintain and deploy armed forces constituted grounds for the international sovereignty of the Order, which minted its own coins and maintained diplomatic relations with other states. The senior positions of the Order were given to representatives of different Langues.
In 1523, after six months of siege and fierce combat against the fleet and army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the walls collapsed from undermining explosives, and by a negotiated surrender the Knights left Rhodes carrying their arms.
Malta
The Order remained without a territory of its own 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 Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and his mother Queen Joanna of Castile as monarchs of Sicily, with the approval of Pope Clement VII, for which the order had to honour the conditions of the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon.In 1565, the Knights, led by Grand Master Fra' Jean de Valette, defended the island for more than three months during the Great Siege by the Ottomans.
The fleet of the Order contributed to the ultimate destruction of the Ottoman naval power in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, led by John of Austria, half brother of King Philip II of Spain.
The Reformation, which split Western Europe into Protestant and Catholic states, affected the knights as well. In several countries, including England, Scotland, and Sweden, the order dissolved. In others, including the Netherlands and Germany, entire bailiwicks or commanderies experienced Protestant conversions; these "Johanniter orders" survive in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden and many other countries, including the United States and South Africa. It was established that the order should remain neutral in any war between Christian nations.
From 1651 to 1665, the Order ruled four islands in the Caribbean. On 21 May 1651 it acquired the islands of Saint Barthélemy, Saint Christopher, Saint Croix and Saint Martin. These were purchased from the French Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique which had just been dissolved. In 1665, the four islands were sold to the French West India Company.
File:Emperor Paul in the Crown of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta.jpeg|thumb|upright|Emperor Paul of Russia wearing the Crown of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta
In 1798, Napoleon led the French occupation of Malta. Napoleon demanded from Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim that his ships be allowed to enter the port and to take on water and supplies. The Grand Master replied that only two foreign ships could be allowed to enter the port at a time. Bonaparte, aware that such a procedure would take a long time and leave his forces vulnerable to British Admiral Horatio Nelson, immediately ordered a cannon fusillade against Malta. The French soldiers disembarked in Malta at seven points on the morning of 11 June and attacked. After several hours of fierce fighting, the Maltese in the west were forced to surrender.
Napoleon opened negotiations with the fortress capital of Valletta. Faced with vastly superior French forces and the loss of western Malta, the Grand Master negotiated a surrender to the invasion. Hompesch left Malta for Trieste on 18 June. He resigned as Grand Master on 6 July 1799.
The knights were dispersed, though the Order continued to exist in a diminished form and negotiated with European governments for a return to power as part of the agreement between France and Holy Roman Empire during the German mediatisation. The Russian Emperor, Paul I, gave the largest number of knights shelter in Saint Petersburg, an action that gave rise to the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller and the Order's recognition among the Russian Imperial Orders. The refugee knights in Saint Petersburg proceeded to elect Tsar Paul as their Grand Master – a rival to Grand Master von Hompesch until the latter's abdication left Paul as the sole Grand Master. Grand Master Paul I created, in addition to the Catholic Grand Priory, a "Russian Grand Priory" of no fewer than 118 Commanderies, dwarfing the rest of the Order and open to all Christians. Paul's election as Grand Master was, however, never ratified under Catholic canon law, and he was the de facto rather than de jure Grand Master of the Order.
By the early 19th century, the Order was severely weakened by the loss of its priories throughout Europe. Only 10% of the order's income came from traditional sources in Europe, with the remaining 90% being generated by the Russian Grand Priory until 1810. This was partly reflected in the government of the Order being under Lieutenants, rather than Grand Masters, in the period 1805 to 1879, when Pope Leo XIII restored a Grand Master to the order. This signaled the renewal of the Order's fortunes as a humanitarian and religious organization.