Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg)

Order Of Saint John (Bailiwick Of Brandenburg)

The Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John of the Hospital at Jerusalem (in German, the Balley Brandenburg des Ritterlichen Ordens Sankt Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem), or simply the Order of Saint John (Der Johanniterorden), is the German Protestant branch of the Knights Hospitaller, the oldest chivalric order, which generally is considered to have been founded in Jerusalem in the year 1099.

The Order is led by its thirty-seventh Herrenmeister ("Master of the Knights"), Oskar Prinz von Preußen (born in 1959, he is a great-grandson of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II). Each of its knights, about four thousand men worldwide, is either a Knight of Justice (Rechtsritter) or a Knight of Honor (Ehrenritter). Membership in the order is by invitation only, and individuals may not petition for admission; it is not limited to German citizens or German speakers, and knights include citizens and residents of most major nations. The Order comprises seventeen commanderies in Germany, one each in Austria, Finland, France, Hungary, and Switzerland, and one global commandery with subcommanderies in eleven other countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Italy, Namibia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela).

Together with the London-based Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (of which, the British monarch is Sovereign Head), the Swedish Johanniterorden i Sverige, and the Dutch Johanniter Orde in Nederland, the Order forms the Alliance of the Orders of St. John of Jerusalem. With the Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta (the "SMOM"), these four "Alliance orders" represent the legitimate heirs of the Knights Hospitaller. They consider other orders using the name of Saint John to be merely imitative, and the Alliance and the SMOM have jointly formed a False Orders Committee (now renamed and reorganized as the Committee on Orders of St. John), with representatives of each of the five orders, for the purpose of exposing and taking action against such imitations.

The Order and its affiliate orders in the Netherlands and Sweden, which became independent of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg after the Second World War, in 1946, are Protestant. The SMOM, headquartered in Rome, admits only men and women of the Roman Catholic faith. The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, a revival of the mediaeval English Langue of the Order of Saint John, was chiefly Anglican at its formation in the nineteenth century but has since opened its membership to men and women of any faith.