The Hospitallers are members of the Catholic knightly monastic order, which was founded (c. 1099 - present) in Palestine during the Crusades. The name is from the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (John), a house for pilgrims, in Jerusalem - the first residence of the order.
1310 - the Johannites captured Fr. Rhodes. 1530-1798 - The residence was moved to the island of Malta, and the Hospitallers became known as the Knights of the Order of Malta.
Foundation of the order
The Order of the Hospitallers was founded immediately after the First Crusade by Gerard the Blessed, his powers were confirmed by the papal Bull, granted by Pope Paschal II in 1113. Bull recognized the sovereignty of the existence of the Order of the Hospitallers and gave him the right to freely choose his leadership without interference from secular and ecclesiastical authorities.
The military aspect in the activities of the order arose as an additional service to the pilgrims - especially those who were heading to the Jordan to enter the waters of the river in which Jesus Christ was baptized. The hospitallers built a hospitable home, which was called the "Red Cup", where pilgrims going to the Jordan could quench their thirst and spend the night without fear for their lives. This house, of course, had to be protected from possible raids - so after a while a knightly detachment appeared in the order. But the tradition of providing hospitality to pilgrims was not forgotten, moreover, as was often emphasized, this side of the Hospitallers' activities remained the most important. By the middle of the 12th century, the order was divided into warrior brothers and healer brothers who took care of the sick.
History of the Order
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After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Hospitaller Order first settled in the city of Limassol in Cyprus, and in 1309 captured the island of Rhodes from Byzantium and made it an order state. Then they began to call themselves the Rhodes knights. 1523 - The Turks were able to drive them off the island, and in 1530 they occupied the island of Malta and were named the Knights of Malta.
In the 16th century, the Order actively fought against Ottoman expansion, as well as against Arab and Berber pirates who hunted in the Mediterranean and acted as allies of the Ottoman Empire.
The political and religious situation in Europe changed rapidly in the middle and second half of the 17th century. The era of the Reformation began. The German lands, as well as the Danish and Dutch kingdoms, announced their withdrawal from the Catholic Church. This dealt a severe blow to the Order, as one Priory after another began to declare their independence, and in England the Order was outlawed and all its property was confiscated.
Order of Malta-2
By the end of the 17th century, only the threat of a possible Turkish expansion provided the Order with some support from European states, and the Order continued to maintain its sovereignty and autonomy. But, already in the late 17th and early 17th centuries, the Mediterranean states were able to create their own naval forces, sufficient to defend their coastlines. The Hospitallers with their powerful fleet were no longer needed. Convenient port and strategic location of the island of Malta is becoming a great temptation for the fleets of France, Italy and Spain.
The Order of Malta ruled the island until 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte captured it. Expecting to defend themselves against the invaders, the Knights of Malta established a special province in Russia in 1797, and on December 16 of the same year the Russian Emperor Paul 1 was elected Grand Master. Not only did he not take a monastic vow, but was not even Catholic, but Orthodox. After the assassination of Paul 1, the new emperor Alexander 1 declared himself not a Grand Master, but only the protector (that is, patron saint) of the order, and in 1807 he abolished it in Russia.
Malta has been occupied by the British since 1800, who turned it into their colony. As a result, in 1834 the Order of the Hospitallers settled in Rome, while the residence of the order received and retains to this day the right of extraterritoriality. This means that the order is formally a sovereign state, like the Vatican today.
Order of Malta today
The Order of Malta is one of the oldest, most prestigious and most influential orders of chivalry in the modern world. It is recognized, as stated above, a subject of international law - a kind of state without territory, uniting people of different nationalities and religious beliefs. With an area of only 0.012 km², the Order of Malta is the most populous country in the world, because the density of people living there (Attention) is more than 1.5 million people / km² (1,583,333, 33 people / km²). Sometimes the Order of Malta is seen as a dwarf state.
Usually, members of the Order occupy a rather high social position, as the knights of the Order of Malta in Spain are headed by the king of Spain, and in England - by the English queen. As a rule, the kings of the countries of Europe were themselves knights of the Order and patronized it. At the head of their activities is service - charitable and humanitarian aid to people. Today in Malta there is an Association of Knights. The order is located in two Maltese historic castles - those in which it was based historically. They are not in the full possession of the Order, it simply occupies them. The seat of the Order is located in Rome, in the Castel Sant'Angelo.