The landscape before the birth of the Order

Although the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, later known as Knights of Malta, had its actual inception in the year of Our Lord, 1090, it had also a sort of a preamble in the sense that an attempt of a similar nature had started in 600 A.D. when Pope St. Gregory the Great ordered the Abbott Probus to proceed to Jerusalem, provided with the necessary funds, to build a Christian hospital in the Holy City, which Abbott Probus did.

Destroyed by the Persians in A.D. 614 the Christian Hospital was restored by St. John the Almoner who was then the Patriarch of Alexandria. The Christian Hospital passed through many vicissitudes and again during the Caliphate of Harun al-Raxid, it became restored by Charlemagne. As a matter of fact, Charlemagne assured the continued operation of the Hospital by passing it into the hands of the Benedictine Fathers. He, therefore, added a house for habitation and a church (Sancta Maria ad Latinos) to the main building of the Hospital. The year 1010 witnessed once again the destruction of the Christian Hospital by the hands of another Kalif this time Kalif el-Hakem Bin Amr Allah.

The Amalfitans restored the Christian Hospital in 1023 when a new page started to be written later in 1048 Amalfitans, this time a certain Maro of Amalfi made further additions to the Christian Hospital complex. Those Amalfitan merchants being both rich and zealous were in a good position to effect such restorations. They dedicated the Christian Hospital complex to St. John the Almoner. .The history proper of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem as such had its creative spark in 1090 at the time when the Blessed Gerard was Rector and Administrator of the Christian Hospital.

CYPRUS 1291-1308

the Order moved to Cyprus in 1291, whereby the concession of Henry II of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem (later King of Cyprus), too established its headquarters in the town of Limassol.

From the Knights of Saint John the King of Cyprus founded the Royal House Guards, who marched into history as the “Knights of Sword and Silence”, i.e. the Sovereign Order of Cyprus.

The Grand Master made an appeal to all Knights: “You must replace our Knights buried under the ruins of Saint John of Acre; you have in your hands the life, the property and the freedom of your brothers and of all the Christians moaning in chains; that all men, belonging to God, take up arms and come to liberate the kingdom and the land of their ancestors, so the sons may not lose shamefully what their fathers conquered as men of courage.”

It was on the sea that the legendary story of the Order would take place from that moment on. On their ships, flying the red flag with the octagonal white cross, the Knights would defend the caravans of pilgrims heading to the holy places