A military order is any one of a variety of Christian societies of knights that were founded from the Middle Ages onwards for the purpose of crusading – propagating or defending the faith (originally Catholic, and after the Reformation sometimes Protestant), either in the Holy Land or against Islam (as, for example, during the Reconquista) or pagans (mainly in the Baltic region) in Europe. Many orders have, since the end of the Crusades and the Ottoman incursions, become secularized, and are usually represented by Roman Catholic ceremonial, missionary and charitable organizations in modern times.
Read more about Military Order: History, Purpose and Function, List of Military Orders, Other Uses
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or order:
“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“and if the day
is no day for miracles, then the preparations
are an order one may rest in.
But one doesn’t want
rest, one wants miracles.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)