OrderOfMalta.org.uk

Title

Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the United Kingdom

Description

Founded during the eleventh century, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta is the world's oldest order of chivalry and its oldest lay charitable organisation. It is also one of the oldest religious orders. Based in Rome, with observer status at the United Nations, and having accredited ambassadors to ninety two countries, this unique Catholic institution is administered by a sovereign government which issues its own postage stamps, passports and coins, and makes its own foreign policy. It is the world's oldest continuously existing military organisation.

With associations in forty six nations, the Order of Malta supports hospitaller works on every continent. Its chief executive, the Prince and Grand Master, is styled His Most Eminent Highness. He is accorded the ecclesiastical precedence of a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, with the diplomatic honours due to a sovereign head of state. Like a few dozen of the

Order's knights, the Grand Master is a monk who has taken solemn religious vows, though he doesn't live in a monastery but in the Grand Magistry, the Order's headquarters in the centre of Rome.

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