SOVEREIGN ORDER
OF SAINT JOHN
OF JERUSALEM
History and Lineage Charts Since 1797
I. INTRODUCTION
II. THE SOSJ PRESERVES ITSELF BY DEFENDING MONARCHY
III. THE INTERNATIONAL WHITE CROSS OF THE SOSJ
IV. IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST INTERNATIONAL ANARCHISTS THE SOSJ
ADDS AN AMERICAN GRAND PRIORY
V. THE AMERICAN GRAND PRIORY VENTURES INTO FOREIGN SERVICE
VI. REVOLUTIONARIES WITHIN THE SOSJ CONTRIBUTE TO ANARCHY
VII. THE KORNILOV AFFAIR
VIII. THE SOSJ RESPONDS TO THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
IX. COUNT KELLER, PRINCE AWALOFF AND GRAND DUKE CYRIL LEAD
THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN AGAINST THE BOLSHEVIKS
X. THE LINEAGE OF THE SOVEREIGN ORDER OF SAINT OF JERUSALEM
XI. THE BALTIC CAMPAIGN OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
XII. THE AMERICAN GRAND PRIORY JOINS THE FIGHT
AGAINST THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONALE
XIII. GERMAN NATIONALISTS NURTURE THE WHITE RUSSIAN
GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE
XIV. THE SOSJ GOVERNMENT IS MOVED TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
XV. THE EXILED ROMANOV FAMILY DEFEATS ITSELF
XVI. THE SOSJ SUPPORTS FASCISM TO DEFEAT BOLSHEVISM
XVII. LIBERALS USE THE AMERICAN COURTS TO SILENCE AMERICAN
ANTI-COMMUNISTS
XVIII. THE ORDER ENTRENCHES ITSELF FOR THE COLD WAR
XIX. THE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND KNIGHTS OF THE
SOSJ DEFEND AGAINST COMMUNISM
XX. THE POST-WAR GERMAN ORDER OF ST. JOHN ABANDONS THE SOSJ
TO IMPROVE ITS IMAGE
XXI. THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA STAND AGAINST HUMANISTS WITHIN THE
CHURCH
XXII. THE HISTORIC MISSION OF THE SOSJ
INTRODUCTION
The Brothers of the Hospital of Saint John
of Jerusalem were established as an order in Jerusalem c. 1099.
Named after St. John the Baptist, the brotherhood was begun
to serve the poor and provide a hospice for pilgrims travelling
to Jerusalem. The crusaders who constituted the founding members
of the Order soon resumed arms in defense of the poor and Christians
who were attacked in the Holy Land, developing into a military
brotherhood known widely as the Knights Hospitaller.
The King of Jerusalem confirmed the Hospitallers as an international
corporation in 1104. The Apostolic See became its perpetual
Protector in 1113 by a Papal Bull of Paschal II. Renowned for
skilled hospital care and prowess in battle, the Hospitaller
Knights became indispensable defenders of Christendom and the
Order was first recognized as a sovereign state by King Richard
the Lion Heart of England in 1191. The Order was forced by the
Moslems from the Holy Land in 1291 and from Rhodes in 1523.
The Convent of the Order was on the island
of Malta, and its 70th Grand Master was Prince Ferdinand von
Hompesch, when the humanist revolution was creating widespread
change on the political map of Europe. The Knights of the Order
used strategic foresight in gaining the Czar of Russia as a
secondary Protector because in 1798 Malta was seized by General
Napoleon Bonaparte. This was the Order’s first confrontation
with Freemasonry and with its spawn of democratic revolutions.
A large contingent of French Knights of Malta, who had accepted
the precepts of the revolutionaries, joined Napoleon’s
army. Most of the remainder rallied to St. Petersburg, Russia,
which was the home of their new powerful Protector.
There have been many questions concerning the legal and historical
validity of the SOSJ after its transfer from Malta to Russia,
and later to the United States of America. This essay addresses
various aspects of the continuity of the Order’s government
starting from the late 18th century in St. Petersburg, following
it to the United States of America in the beginning of the 20th
century and finally devolving upon the Knights of Justice who
now are headquartered in Florida and Tennessee. The Knights
compromised their strict Roman Catholic principles as they focused
on the survival and independence of their brotherhood, but they
succeeded in preserving their lineage intact. Other provincial
groups of Knights of Malta eventually became sufficiently organized
to warrant their respective national monarchs to recognize them
as distinct orders later in the 19th century. This is the cause
of the several widely recognized orders of St. John and of Malta
that we know today. The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem
is, in contrast, the factual continuation of the Order from
Malta, and was supported as such by the Russian monarchy continuously
until the death of Czar Kirill I in 1938. Since then it has
continued without a host monarch designated as its formal Protector.
Rather, since the Order became extra-territorial, it reverted
to the tradition of election of its own sovereign prince from
amongst its Knights of Justice, an historic right which has
been retained since 1191.
The Coronation of Czar Nicholas
II
II. THE SOSJ PRESERVES ITSELF BY DEFENDING MONARCHY
Shortly after their arrival in Russia, the
exiled Knights of Malta joined with the Catholic Grand Priory
of Russia and elected their Orthodox and married Protector,
Czar Paul I, as the 71st Grand Master. Grand Master Czar Paul
I helped to settle the SOSJ in the Russian capital city. He
decreed that their Convent would remain at the Imperial residence
of St. Petersburg, and that his successors would continue as
its protectors. He created a second Grand Priory principally
for his Orthodox nobility. He then invited non-Catholic Europeans,
mainly Lutherans, to join this new priory for the purpose of
preserving the SOSJ and the Christian monarchies of Europe by
perpetual opposition to the Humanist Revolution. His plan to
return the Russian Orthodox Church, of which he was the sovereign
head, to full communion with the Catholic Church had created
enemies among his closest advisors and relatives. Czar Paul
I, an unrecognized champion of the Order, was martyred, allegedly
by Freemasons, in 1801.
An image of the OSJ Priory Palace within the Imperial Residence
at Gatchina, Russia. The Relics of the Order were saved from
this building by the White Russians in 1919, after the Bolshevik
Revolution.
The Holy See had often desired in the past
to control the election of the Grand Master and the Order’s
history shows that the knights always successfully resisted
this interference. The election of Czar Paul I had broken the
lineage of unmarried Catholic grand masters, but continued the
jealously guarded tradition of independent election of their
leader by the knights. The Knights of Malta believed that the
unusual circumstances in world affairs which resulted in the
relocation of the convent to Russia called for nontraditional
action to salvage the Order and to counter the Revolution. Election
disputes developed after the death of Grand Master Czar Paul
I and this helped to create a permanent split between the Sovereign
Order in Russia and the surviving Italian priories of knights.
The Sovereign Council in Russia and Czar Alexander I asked the
Pope to name the next Grand Master “for one time only”
from a list of candidates presented from the various priories
of knights. The Pope selected the Russian Catholic Grand Priory’s
candidate, who became the 72nd Grand Master, John Baptist di
Tommasi. Tommasi died in 1805, and then the Pope tried to name
Tommasi’s successor. This intervention was not acceptable
to the Sovereign Council and to the majority of the Knights
of St. John who were determined to elect their own leader as
was the tradition and historic right of the Order. It was also
generally known that Napoleon was directing the Pope’s
choice for Grand Master. The SOSJ chose the Russian Czar as
the head and Protector of the Order which was being managed
by the Sovereign Council. They refused to recognize the papal
appointments which followed thereafter, for they were not legitimately
initiated by the Order. Early in the 19th century, the Italian
priories adopted the name Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
The members of the fledgling SMOM declared themselves the legitimate
continuation of the Order and refused to recognize the Sovereign
Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. The knights of the SOSJ reciprocated
by not recognizing the splinter group in Italy. The disagreement
continues today. Indeed, it has only been in the past few years
that the SMOM has grudgingly accepted Czar Paul I, but as the
72nd Grand Master of the Order. They continue to describe him
as Grand Master “in fact” but not “in justice”
because the Czar was a married Orthodox Christian.
Nevertheless, the Order became an influential
institution in Imperial Russia deeply involved with the preservation
of the European monarchies in general, and with the Romanoff
dynasty in particular. The two grand priories in Russia, one
Catholic and the other principally Orthodox, educated young
men at their school, the Corps des Pages, in St. Petersburg.
The Corps des Pages was the academy for the creation of new
Knights of Malta. The graduates of this school became leaders
of the exclusive Guard Divisions and thereby protectors of the
Imperial Family of Russia.
Their tradition of health care was continued through the hospital
and relief agency known as the Russian White Cross. The Sovereign
Council, consisting of senior Knights of Justice, governed the
Order and ensured its legal continuation. Initially the Order
was led by Lieutenant Grand Master General Soltikoff after the
death of Czar Paul I. Eventually the leadership of the SOSJ
consisted of a President of the Sovereign Council who was assisted
by a Grand Chancellor. These men reported directly to each reigning
Russian czar who was described as the “Head of the Chapter.”
Each Czarina was likewise traditionally the honorary head of
the White Cross. The czars took personal custody of the Order’s
famous icon of Our Lady of Philermos and the two relics which
are the hand of St. John the Baptist and a piece of the True
Cross. These were kept either at the Winter Palace or at the
SOSJ Priory Chapel of the Gatchina Palace, depending upon the
liturgical calendar. This arrangement continued until the Bolshevik
Revolution of October 1917.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1797 |
Prince GM Ferdinand von Hompesch |
|
|
|
|
Pope Pius VI
Czar Paul I |
1798 |
GM Czar Paul I |
LGM J Count de Litta |
|
Prince de Conde |
|
GM Czar Paul I |
1799 |
GM Czar Paul I |
LGM Field Marshall Count Soltykoff |
|
Prince de Conde |
|
GM Czar Paul I |
1801 |
|
LGM Field Marshall Count Soltykoff |
Undetermined |
Czar Alexander I |
|
Czar Alexander I |
1803 |
GM John Baptist di Tommasi |
|
Undetermined |
Czar Alexander |
|
Czar Alexander I |
1805 |
|
|
Undetermined |
Czar Alexander |
|
Czar Alexander I |
1825 |
|
|
Undetermined |
Senior Grand Duke |
|
Czar Nicholas I |
1855 |
|
|
Undetermined |
Senior Grand Duke |
|
Czar Alexander II |
1881 |
|
|
Undetermined |
Senior Grand Duke |
|
Czar Alexander III |
1894 |
|
|
Undetermined |
G D Vladimir |
|
Czar Nicholas II |
III. THE INTERNATIONAL WHITE CROSS OF THE SOSJ
In 1893 the Russian Ambassador to the United
States, Prince Cantacuzene, Russian Admiral Grand Duke Alexander
Michaelovich and Russian Transportation Commissioner Colonel
A. Cherep Spiridovich, introduced the Russian SOSJ White Cross
at the Chicago World’s Fair to American civic leaders.
Pope Leo XIII promised prominent civic leader Mrs. Potter Palmer
of Chicago his support for her chairmanship of “Women
of the World” presentations at the Fair and assigned Archbishop
John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota to work with her. Thereby
began the SOSJ affiliation with an American White Cross movement
supported by the Catholic Church. The American Cardinal Gibbons
and Archbishop Ireland continued their affiliation with the
White Cross and the Knights of St. John for at least twenty
years thereafter. Archbishop Ireland was the head chaplain for
the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic and therefore
had a responsibility for the welfare of American servicemen.
Their initial efforts resulted in a White Cross headquarters
in Portland, Oregon which coordinated American nurses sent to
Cuba and the Philippine Islands during the Spanish-American
War.
The next public result of this Russian-American-Catholic coordination
was an attempt in 1899 to get a Title 36 Charter from the U.S.
Congress for the National White Cross of America. General Nelson
Miles, commanding General of the U.S. Army, and George Westinghouse,
founder of Westinghouse Electric of Pittsburgh, were among those
involved directly in the White Cross charter effort. The proposed
charter would have allowed the organization to continue hospital
and relief work exclusively for the American military community.
The charter bill was passed to the foreign affairs desk and
stalled indefinitely by those concerned about Russian and Catholic
influence in the organization. While it had been passed through
both the House and Senate without dissension, it was ultimately
not signed into law by the President of the United States. After
all, the White Cross was a Russian institution of the SOSJ,
and Roman Catholic Archbishop John Ireland would be one of the
founding members of the proposed American affiliate. Though
the American White Cross proposed exclusive support for the
American military community, the obvious competition with the
American Red Cross which did similar work also concerned some
politicians. Archbishop Ireland, Chief Chaplain for the Grand
Army of the Republic, General Miles, George Westinghouse of
Pittsburgh, Chicago industrialist Richard Teller Crane, Chicago
real estate mogul Potter Palmer, and many others continued life
long affiliations with Russia or with the Russian-American White
Cross movement.
Several things occurred in 1901 which would have long term effects
on the SOSJ. Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich, son of the Russian
OSJ Grand Prior, assisted Richard Teller Crane of Chicago with
plans to organize the American White Cross in New York City.
It is believed that they created the American International
Academy and named explorer and geologist Francis C. Nicholas
as its first president. This pan-American organization was designed
for intelligence gathering operations. In 1901, the SMOM (Sovereign
Military Order of Malta headquartered in Rome) and Cardinal
Gibbons announced that an American Grand Priory would be started
solely for the American Catholic members of a fraternal organization
called the “Knights of St. John” which had been
started about 1880 in imitation of the old order. Colonel Cherep
Spiridovich, mentioned previously, became President of the Slavonic
Society of Moscow. For five years, he had been Serbian Consul
to Moscow, and was a member of the Serbian and later of the
Russian Secret Services. The Slavonic Society was an intelligence
operation which funneled arms and resources to nationalist elements
in the Balkans. The patron of the Society was Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich. His wife, Grand Duchess Ella, was the elder sister
of the Russian Czarina.
In 1903 the American Red Cross administrators restructured their
organization and curtailed the authority of their founder, Clara
Barton. Barton had been influenced in her famous work by the
Russian White Cross and by the Johanniter Orden relief services
in Europe. Her friend, Princess Louise of Baden, was the daughter
of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, Herrenmeister of the Johanniter
Orden. The American Red Cross Field Service Superintendent was
Edward Howe from the English St. John’s Ambulance Association.
Barton resigned from the American Red Cross and established
the National First Aid Association of America in the District
of Columbia in 1904. She was assisted in this by men who had
tried to start the American White Cross, namely General Nelson
A. Miles and Field Superintendent Edward Howe.
In 1904, R. T. Crane, U.S. Consul for Persia,
built an emergency hospital clinic in Chicago in memory of a
niece killed in a disastrous inner city fire. Mrs. Palmer sent
funds from Chicago to the Russian Czarina, Patroness of the
Russian White Cross, to be used for relief of victims of the
Russo-Japanese War. St. Andrew’s Ambulance Society of
Scotland received its new name and independence from the St.
John’s Ambulance Association of England.
In
December, 1904 the American White Cross First Aid Society was
started in Chicago by civic leader Mrs. Potter Palmer, Roman
Catholic Cardinal Gibbons, the industrialist Andrew Carnegie,
representatives of the U.S. Army and Edward Howe, formerly the
American Red Cross Field Superintendent. Edward Howe was thus
the field superintendant for both the National First Aid Association
and for the American White Cross First Aid Society. A similar
arrangement existed in England between the Venerable Order of
St. John of Jerusalem and the British Red Cross. The Catholic
Church, American civic leaders, the U.S. Army and the English
St. John’s Ambulance Association were thus working together
with the Russian White Cross. This was the “ecumenical
beginning” of the Order in America, which Grand Chancellor
Pichel described in his history of the SOSJ in 1958. The American
White Cross First Aid Society had Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. H.
McCormick, Andrew Carnegie, R. T. Crane, General J. D. Irwin
and Cardinal Gibbons as Vice Presidents. By association, this
brought the Crane Family, the Cantacuzene Family, the McCormick
Family, Nicholas Murray Butler, the American military medical
community, and the Catholic Church into the White Cross ambulance
work which soon followed.
Besides Edward Howe, the moving force in the
White Cross was the famous Chicago surgeon and Illinois militia
officer Dr. Nicholas Senn. Dr. Senn had been President of the
American Medical Association and a founder of the Association
of U. S. Military Surgeons. He had also been involved with the
early organizing activities of the White Cross. He was associated
with the Knights in Russia and had visited them in St. Petersburg
in 1902. He was instrumental in the organization of the program
in New York. Unfortunately he died prematurely in 1908.
After the death of Dr. Senn, the American Red
Cross was assured of the lead in national relief work, and in
1910, reinstated their “First Aid to the Injured”
program. The American White Cross therefore eventually focused
on large-scale relief overseas during war and famine. As we
will later see, a 1921 relief association of American Catholics
from the White Cross evolved into a new American Association
of the SMOM in 1927.
The Chicago Crane family affiliation with the White Cross eventually
led, in 1941, to their daughter Frances’ marriage to OSJ
Hereditary Knight Commander Belosselsky-Belozersky, in New York
City. The White Cross work of the Chicago Palmers was continued
by their relatives, the Cantacuzenes. Prince Michel Cantacuzene
and Julia Grant Cantacuzene were members of the Romanian Prince
Cantacuzene and President General Ulysses S. Grant families.
An early and prominent member of the American White Cross was
Wall Street lawyer William Nelson Cromwell, who was responsible
for the success of, among many other projects, McCormick Harvester,
Carnegie’s U.S. Steel Corporation and the Panama Canal.
He became Grand Prior of the American SOSJ in 1912. Charles
R. Crane, son of R. T. Crane, became a philanthropist, diplomat,
and, unfortunately, a financial supporter of the first Russian
revolution of February, 1917.
IV. IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST INTERNATIONAL ANARCHISTS
THE SOSJ ADDS AN AMERICAN GRAND PRIORY
The late 19th and early 20th century was an
era of anarchist activism. The SOSJ in Russia searched for potential
allies in its ongoing defense of Christendom. An epidemic of
political assassinations and the abortive Russian Revolution
of 1905 prompted the expansion of the Order into the United
States. In 1905 Count Alexis Ignatiev, Commander of the SOSJ
Chevalier Guards, was assassinated in Russia. Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich was also assassinated. The Grand Duke was the
patron of the Slavonic Society of Moscow, of which Cherep Spiridovich
was president. As mentioned previously, this agency was an intelligence
organization funneling arms into the Balkans in support of nationalists
struggling against the Turks, and is believed to have been an
arm of the SOSJ. These events hastened the development of a
permanent presence of the Knights of St. John in America, in
addition to their White Cross First Aid Society, to ensure the
Order’s survival and to tap the resources of the American
Republic.
At the time of his death, Grand Duke Sergei was the Military
Governor General of Moscow and had worked to uncover the cells
of anarchists who were assasinating government officials which
included his own father Czar Alexander II. His wife Grand Duchess
Elizabeth, sister of Czarina Alexandra, was involved in the
research to unmask the anarchists and this interest brought
them both into contact with an Orthodox spiritual writer named
Sergei Alexandrovich Nilus. Nilus was one of the earliest men
to produce a copy of the “Protocols of the Wise Men of
Zion” and Grand Duchess Ella introduced him and the Protocols
to her sister and to Czar Nicholas II. Major General Arthur
Cherep-Spiridovich, President of the Slavonic Society, was thereby
one of the earliest members of any Intelligence Service to see
the Protocols. He was given the mandate by the Russian Imperial
family to investigate the matter fully and to spread the alarm
about “the hidden hand” of international Zionism
and its plan to gain global control through the elimination
of the Christian Church. He was made a Count of the Catholic
Church by Pope Pius X about 1907. He was President of the Catholic
Grand Priory and was one of the principal organizers of the
American branch of the SOSJ. His patronesses, Czarina Alexandra
and Grand Duchess Ella, were convinced of the authenticity of
the international conspiracy and in 1918 both of these influential
women were murdered by the Bolsheviks.
After the death of Dr. Nicholas Senn in 1908, the American White
Cross movement with headquarters in Chicago was expanded further
by union with the Knights of St. John and Malta Hospital and
Relief Association of Brooklyn, New York. The organization was
named White Cross Hospital and Relief Association. The main
offices of the relief association remained at the GAR Hall,
at 990 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. The headquarters of this
new association was apparently being prepared at what is now
called the Audubon Terrace on North Broadway in New York City.
Senior knights were building a facility to be complete in every
aspect for the conduction of the affairs of the Order. Charles
Hayward and George H. Bruce, formerly of the Knights of St John
and Malta Hospital and Relief Association, had joined with senior
SOSJ knights, many of whom were agents of the Imperial Russian
Secret Service. Most of them were Catholic Knights of Malta
of the Catholic Grand Priory of Russia, and represented many
of the nations of Europe. They considered this American association
not only as a new organization for the Americas, but as the
continuation of the old Polish Grand Priory that had been in
the minority in Russia since 1815. They printed a journal for
the association called The White Cross Knight.
Major General Arthur Cherep Spiridovich, President
of the remnant Catholic Grand Priory of Russia, was among the
coordinators of this expansion. As mentioned, the General was
also an emissary of Czarina Alexandra of Russia, Patroness of
the Russian SOSJ White Cross and of her sister Grand Duchess
Elizabeth, promoter of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and
now an Orthodox nun and superior of an Order in Moscow. As an
intelligence operative, he was handled by the Russian Ambassador
to the U. S., Baron Rosen. He was also an agent of the Serbian
royal family. There began a long relationship between the OSJ
in America and the Yugoslavian and Roumanian royal families.
Major General Cherep Spiridovich,
OSJ a founder of the OSJ American Grand Priory
|
A book written by Cherep Spiridovich,
published in New York
|
The four orders of St. John jockeyed for positions
of influence in American society. These included the SOSJ, the
SMOM, The German Order of St. John and the British Venerable
Order of St. John. The constant interaction with the aristocracy,
nobility and royalty of the Old World motivated some American
members to become involved in genealogical and racial studies.
To qualify for knighthood in accordance with the rules of the
SOSJ was nearly impossible for Americans. The result of the
strict admittance qualifications was the founding by private
individuals of the National Genealogical Society, the interaction
with an unrecognized College of Arms of Canada, the founding
of the American Heraldry Society, and, to some degree, the support
of the early racial eugenics movement. Various patriotic and
genealogical societies were established during this period to
qualify Americans and Canadians for OSJ knighthood. The Lords
of Manors of Baltimore, Scions of Colonial Cavaliers, Order
of Colonial Dames, Imperial Order of the Yellow Rose, and the
Order of the White Crane are some of the societies the American
knights started. We will also see that others, motivated by
their affiliation with Freemasonic lodges, attempted to advance
the agenda of their fraternities by affiliation with the Sovereign
Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Russia.
In 1909, Grand Duke Vladimir was assassinated in Russia, and
his son, Grand Duke Cyril, thereby became Grand Prior of the
OSJ Russian Grand Priory. Grand Duke Vladimir had cultivated
relations between the SOSJ in Russia, the German Order of St.
John and the Spanish Order of St. John the Baptist. The German
and Spanish orders were branches of the original Order. He had
also encouraged the American members of the White Cross to further
develop those relationships. German influence on the new OSJ
American Association through the Johanniter Orden Protector
Emperor Wilhelm II and his brother Prince Henry of Prussia was
evident before World War I with exchange visits by the industrialist
Cornelius Vanderbilt and President of Columbia University Nicholas
Murray Butler, Director of OSJ Education from 1912 to 1928.
German influence also came from the Czarina and her sister Ella
who were both members of German royalty. That relationship,
which developed with both the Protestant Johanniter Orden and
with the Catholic Malteser Orden, continued from joint efforts
in the Baltic during the Russian Civil War through the redevelopment
of the German Intelligence Service after WWII.
Colonel Dr. Wm. Sohier Bryant, MD, of New York City, and lawyer
Wm. B. Stites of New Jersey wrote a constitution in 1911 to
form an American Grand Priory of the Sovereign Order of St.
John of Jerusalem from members of the American White Cross.
The American Grand Priory constitution was accepted by the membership
in 1912. The new Grand Priory included the Grand Priory of Russia,
i.e., the former Catholic OSJ Grand Priory of Poland. The headquarters
of the knights was initially the meeting hall of the Knights
of St. John and Malta at Wurzler’s Building, 315 Washington
Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Most early meetings were held at
Joseph Burrows office at 56-58 Pine Street, near Wall Street.
Wall Street lawyer William Nelson Cromwell became American Grand
Prior in 1912, and meetings thereafter were usually held at
his offices in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. According to Pichel,
this continued until 1929, after which the meetings were held
at Dr. Bryant’s office in the Murray Hill section of New
York City. That address was the address of the American Heraldry
Society at 1730 Broadway, and later, by the mid 1930’s,
was 30 East 40th Street, the address of Dr Bryant’s medical
office.
In 1912 the Order consisted of the Russian
Grand Priory in Russia and the new American Grand Priory and
its subsidiary, the Catholic Grand Priory of Russia, which included
remnants of the Spanish Caballeros Hospitalarios de San Juan
Bautista. The Russian Grand Priory was composed mainly of Slavic
Knights of the Orthodox Faith. The American Grand Priory leaders
were mostly socially prominent Protestant Episcopalians from
New York City and Chicago. There was also a small group of American
descendants of Catholic Celtic Jacobites, who were still followers
of the old Stuart Pretender to the throne of England and Scotland.
The Pretender at the time was Queen Mary IV of Bavaria, and
an army physician named Edgar Erskine Hume, OSJ was among those
who later considered Mary’s successor, Bavarian Crown
Prince Rupprecht, as his “rightful sovereign.” The
American Grand Prior, William Nelson Cromwell, and Dr. Francis
C. Nicholas had had contact with Spanish Knights of St. John
during years of preparation work for the American Panama Canal
project. Interaction with the Spanish knights was also the result
of Americans meeting Spanish knights during the Spanish-American
War from 1898 to 1900, and later during the Mexican civil wars.
The remnant Castellany of Guadalajara, Mexico, of the Spanish
Order of St. John the Baptist joined the American Grand Priory
with their monarchist Pretender, Don Agustin Yturbide. King
Alphonso XIII of Spain was the protector of the remnants of
the Spanish Order which was given a papal blessing as late as
1879. He expanded his association to the SOSJ in America.
As noted previously, American Catholics, however, had been joining
a fraternal organization similar to the present day Knights
of Columbus, called the Knights of St. John, since it was founded
in the 1880’s. By the turn of the century, a union of
all military style fraternal associations of the Catholic Church
in America, to be called the Roman Catholic Union of the Knights
of St. John, was supported by Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop
Ireland. Therefore, Catholic knights of the SOSJ had difficulty
determining their loyalties, not only because of the broad spectrum
of their own origins and nationalities, but also because of
the presence of this non-chivalric fraternal organization supported
by the Catholic Church. The SMOM reneged on its promise to Cardinal
Gibbons to create a priory for the American fraternal orders
of Catholic knights which prompted the American Catholic church
authorities to organize the Catholic Knights of America and
the Catholic Benevolent Legion in its stead. Prominent Catholics
from the American Irish White Cross movement, associated with
the SOSJ, who were disenchanted with their order’s political
leanings, eventually founded in 1927 the American Association
of the SMOM. Edgar Erskine Hume, MD, was among the group of
former members of the SOSJ who sought admission into the Italian
order.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1912 |
|
|
Undetermined
President of the American
Grand Priory: W S Bryant
President of the White Cross
Hospital & Relief Assoc.: G.H. Bruce
President of the Latino -
Slavic League: Major General Cherep Spirodovich
President of the Polish White
Cross: Count Potocki (1917) |
Russian Grand
Priory: Grand Duke Cyril Vladimiroich
American Grand Priory:
WN Cromwell |
American Grand
Priory: J.G.B. Bulloch |
Czar Nicholas II |
V. THE AMERICAN GRAND PRIORY VENTURES INTO FOREIGN
SERVICE
The English started a private intelligence
gathering operation supported by their government in 1904 called
the Legion of Frontiersmen. This organization, composed of wealthy
patriotic English volunteers, prefigured MI6. Members of this
group, traveling worldwide as was their customary lifestyle,
became an important source for the British Empire’s constant
need for information. The American White Cross was being used
in similar fashion, and the new American Grand Priory expanded
on that practice. The most prominent families in the United
States joined the American Grand Priory of the SOSJ, and thereby
developed the first American civilian foreign intelligence network.
American Grand Priory leaders, Nicholas Murray Butler, President
of Columbia University, Archer Huntington, founder of the Hispanic
Society of America, William Nelson Cromwell, Wall Street lawyer
and Francis C. Nicholas, founder of the American International
Academy, are among those who crafted the American Grand Priory
into an intelligence organization. Nicholas, a mining engineer
and explorer, had done Cromwell’s Panama Canal construction
feasibility studies. He had also done geological research in
Central and South America for Archer Huntington and Colonel
William Lamb, who were supplying fuel coal to the Russian Navy.
These men wielded significant influence in the United States
during the late 19th through the mid 20th centuries.
Some results of their careers include the founding of the Republic
of Panama and the successful purchase and construction of the
Panama Canal. They were also responsible for the founding of
the Pan-American “Organization of American States”
and directly influenced the founders of the Central Intelligence
Agency. Others prominent in the OSJ at this time included John
Jacob Astor until his death on the Titanic, J. P. Morgan, J
P Morgan, Jr. and the extended Cornelius Vanderbilt and Chicago
Crane families. The Mexican White Cross association was promoted
by Don Agustin Yturbide, OSJ, Pretender to the royal throne
of Mexico. Cromwell used the College of Arms of Canada, of which
Yturbide was President, to create dissension during congressional
hearings into the Panama Canal controversy. Legalistic maneuvering
about ancient French noble rights in Canada brought pressure
on Great Britain to drop complaints about the U. S. control
of the canal. This preceeded by many decades the modern secession
movement of French speaking Canada. Grand Chancellor Bulloch
was involved in this movement which tended to divide the OSJ
into Anglophile and Francophile factions. Grand Prior Cromwell
had become a seasoned veteran at creating trusts, monopolies
and even countries by using revolution if necessary. The principle
White Cross societies besides America and Russia were located
in Spain and Mexico. Dr. Francis C. Nicholas was involved during
the Mexican Civil War from 1912 to 1914 as a White Cross “observer.”
The English St. John’s Ambulance Brigade was started in
Canada, and may have helped with the founding of the White Cross
in Brooklyn as well.
The American Grand Priory also had a history of cooperation
with members of the monarchist and anti-Semitic Russian Black
Hundred’s Movement due to their association with Cherep
Spiridovich. Admiral Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich, OSJ,
was the head of Russian Naval Intelligence. He spent time in
the United States developing relationships with the wealthiest
people in American society. His regular traveling companion
became Major Barclay Harding Warburton of the U.S. Army Military
Intelligence community. Warburton was a member of the “East
Coast Establishment,” and was closely related to the Wannamaker
and Vanderbilt families. The American Grand Priory cooperated
with Russian Naval Intelligence and the Russian Secret Service
directed by Baron Rosen. Grand Duke Alexander was elected the
73rd Grand Master of the SOSJ in September, 1913 during meetings
in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1913 |
Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander
Michaelovich |
|
President
of the American Grand Priory: W S Bryant
President of the White Cross
Hospital & Relief Assoc.: W.W. Butcher
President of the Latino -
Slavic League: Major General Cherep Spirodovich
|
American
Grand Priory: W.N. Cromwell
Russian Grand Priory:
Grand Duke Cyril Vladimiroich |
Chancellor
of the American Grand Priory: J.G.B. Bulloch
Chancellor of the White Cross
Hospital & Relief Assoc.: A. MacNaughton |
Czar Nicholas II |
The First World War found the American Grand
Priory allying itself with the Entente against Germany. Major
General Cherep-Spiridovich had been spreading the alarm about
a global supra-national plan to gain ultimate world power through
financial and political control of the military forces of Germany
and England. He tried to warn the Americans and to strengthen
the bonds between the United States and Russia in an effort
to keep Christians from slaughtering each other. In 1915 Colonel
Robert R. McCormick, of Chicago Tribune fame, reported from
the Russian front lines while interviewing Knights of Malta
who were graduates of the SOSJ Corps des Pages. The White Cross
Hospital and Relief Association of the American Knights of Malta
named its overseas work “The American Ambulance”.
Members of the American Grand Priory quickly became the leaders
of massive relief efforts during WWI.
Sir William Nelson Cromwell, OSJ,
former Grand Prior and first American President of the
Sovereign Council
|
Lafayette Escadrille
Memorial, near Paris, France. Founded by W. N. Cromwell,
OSJ. |
Grand Prior W.N. Cromwell helped to start the
Lafayette Escadrille Flying Corps with Cornelius Vanderbilt
and Dr. Ed Gros of the American Ambulance. This Corps was later
supported by the Order of Lafayette. Rep. Hamilton Fish III
of New York was both a member of this order and the reinstituted
Order of Lafayette following WWII. Unfortunately, the SOSJ is
implicated in the support and possibly in the direction of the
“bloodless revolution” in Russia in the opening
months of 1917.
Above is an excerpt from
a book by Colonel Robert McCormick. His family was among the
founders of the White Cross in Chicago. He remained an active
member of the Knights of Malta until his death in 1955.
VI. REVOLUTIONARIES WITHIN THE SOSJ CONTRIBUTE
TO ANARCHY
Until the First World War, relations between the German Order
of St. John, the English Venerable Order of the Hospital of
St. John of Jerusalem, and the SOSJ were mostly cooperative.
The leaders of these organizations, many of them members of
royal houses, were often close family relatives and/or financially
interdependent. The European royal families were well aware
of the survival of the SOSJ in Russia. Queen Victoria’s
son, the Duke of Connaught, led the English Venerable Order
of St. John of Jerusalem for many decades. He was closely associated
with, and related to, Grand Duke Alexander and others of the
Romanoff family. He had been present in 1894 at the marriage
of SOSJ Protector Czar Nicholas II and Alexandra of Germany
in the tiny Winter Palace Chapel, in which the chief relics
and icon of the SOSJ were prominently venerated. Before Alexander
I became its king, the Duke of Connaught had been seriously
considered for the throne of Yugoslavia. He was Grand Duchess
Victoria Melita’s uncle, and at one time was the potential
father-in-law of SOSJ Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander’s
daughter.
The Duke of Connaught, led for many decades both the English
Venerable Order and, as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge
of England, the Masonic Knights Templar. As the English Governor-General
of Canada from 1910 to 1916, he had a relationship with the
American Masonic Knights of Malta. He also had some influence
over the American Masonic Knights Templar. Unfortunately, the
new American members of the White Cross and SOSJ American Grand
Priory did not heed the prohibitions on Freemasonic affiliation
that had been enforced in Russia. When they joined with the
SOSJ from Russia, some persisted in their Masonic affiliation
as Templars. The amalgamation of the SOSJ with the Knights of
St. John and the Malta Hospital and Relief Association brought
Freemasons into the ranks of the American Grand Priory. The
new Grand Priory of 1912 was thereby influenced by Freemasonry
and Anti-Catholicism. The Freemasons who came into the Grand
Priory had believed in a descent of their fraternity from an
ill-defined Templar-Malta Order from France, or from the old
“reformed” Torpichen Preceptory in Scotland. Some
of the new members were the aforementioned Catholic Jacobites
but there was also a small but significant number of Rosicrucians.
A significant philosophy of the Rosicrucians included an anti-Semitic
and racial superiority agenda.
Some prominent members appear to have persisted
in the Freemasonic quest for humanistic “freedoms”
which had caused the downfall of so many Christian kingdoms
and as noted previously was one of the principle reasons for
the loss of their predecessor’s citadel home on Malta
in 1798. Their personal philosophies also supported the exportation
of “democratic” ideals of the United States of America,
which did not translate peacefully into the needs for social
change in Imperial Russia. In Russia it was widely known that
Freemasonry had been prohibited because it is a fraternity designed
for Revolution against Christianity and against Christian monarchs.
The Knights failed to recognize the danger which they brought
upon the Order and upon Christendom by amalgamating Freemasons
into the ranks of the Knights Hospitaller.
The American Grand Prior, William Nelson Cromwell, was a well
known adept at high level regime change. The lifestyles enjoyed
by Americans, combined with the Wilsonian theme of spreading
Democracy worldwide, appear to have seduced both Grand Master
Grand Duke Alexander and Russian Grand Prior Grand Duke Cyril
into revolutionary scheming against Czar Nicholas II. Many others
in the Imperial Romanoff family were sympathetic to liberal
Socialist plans to end the absolute monarchy in Russia, and
the American Grand Priory of the SOSJ is implicated in their
revolutionary activities. Unfortunately the Czar and his wife
were also influenced by occultism which was in vogue in their
society, and of which Rasputin was an infamous practitioner.
This behavior during wartime on the part of the Czar and his
family caused extreme anxiety in Russia and helped to prompt
militant action among the diverse forces determined to transform
the monarchy. The story of Rasputin’s influence on the
Imperial family and on the politics of Russia is widely known.
It is not generally known, however, that Grand Duke Alexander
directed the assassination of the spiritualist monk Gregori
Rasputin in late 1916. The men directly involved in the murder
of Rasputin were the Grand Duke’s sons, son-in-law, cousin
and a member of British MI6. The Russians were all students
or graduates of the SOSJ Corps des Pages. Grand Duke Alexander
afterward successfully interceded with the czar on behalf of
the assassins, all Knights of St. John.
Grand Duchess Ella was the head of the White
Cross Supreme Council in Russia which oversaw all Hospitaller
activity during WWI. In 1916, the OSJ “American Ambulance
in Russia,” which was organized by Hamilton Fish III,
Dr. Philip Newton, Capt. Philip Lydig, Nicholas Murray Butler,
Colonel Robert McCormick and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt of New
York City and Chicago, started service on the Russian Front.
Their patroness was a daughter of the Czar, Grand Duchess Tatiana
Romanoff.
The American Grand Prior, William Nelson Cromwell,
distanced himself from the adventure as his name was too well
connected with American engineered foreign revolutions of the
recent past. Instead, Charles Richard Crane of the Chicago White
Cross assisted with financing revolutionary change in Russia.
It appears that once again, just as some Knights betrayed their
brethren on Malta by joining with the revolutionaries of Napoleon,
members of the Order were guilty of fratricide and denial of
their Christian faith. The American Ambulance in Russia, at
least financially and philosophically, supported the Kerensky
Regime.
The Knights may have also tactically supported
the first Russian revolution in the early months of 1917 which
placed Kerensky at the head of a new Democratic government.
Prime Minister Kerensky was on the payroll of the American Ambulance.
Grand Duke Cyril was in charge of the troops available to defend
the Czar in St. Petersburg. He used his naval guard corps to
passively support the forced abdication of Czar Nicholas II.
Many blamed both the February and later the October Revolutions
completely on Jewish revolutionaries supported by Germany which
was controlled by kindred forces. However both Grand Prior Grand
Duke Cyril and Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander had naively
allied themselves with the Freemasons and other social humanists
and were thus ostracized by many Russian monarchists. The reality
that the Bolsheviks used the opportunity presented to them by
the assistance to Kerensky of the continental, English and American
Freemasons was apparently a shock to the leadership of the OSJ.
They never confessed their involvement and as a consequence
the Order continued to be plagued by the Freemasons. Grand Master
Grand Duke Alexander was able to retain his elevated status
within the Russian exiled community only due to the position
of his wife, the Grand Duchess Xenia, sister of the late Czar.
Grand Duke Cyril, Protector of the SOSJ, had to outlive more
popular candidates in order for him to gain his birthright,
the leadership of the Romanov dynasty.
VII. THE KORNILOV AFFAIR
A Counter Revolution was soon planned by Russian
Guard officers under Generals Kornilov, Markov and Keller in
August/September of 1917. General Count Keller, OSJ, an intimate
of the Russian Imperial family and friend of German monarchists,
was the only general who immediately refused to accept the abdication
of the Czar to the Kerensky regime. As an influential member
of the SOSJ he singlehandedly started the resistance of the
Knights of Malta whose historical charge was the defense of
Imperial Russia and the Romanoff family.
The Monarchists managed to place many of their
sympathizers in command of the armed forces in St. Petersburg.
Colonel Pavel Bermondt, who served in an Ussuri Cossack unit
of Keller’s 3rd Cavalry Corps, was one of these officers
and was given command of an Ulan cavalry regiment in St. Petersburg.
Captain Sidney Reilly of British MI6 was also in charge of a
cavalry contingent during this conspiracy. Their plan was to
coordinate the armed members of a large number of Russian patriotic
societies which would join with an approaching Guard army under
General Kornilov in order to impose a military junta which would
‘restructure” the Provisional Government and quell
the Bolsheviks. Kerensky was forewarned and he armed the Bolsheviks
to defend his government and the city against the Monarchists.
The Kornilov uprising attempt failed and most of the conspirators,
including Bermondt, were jailed. Many were able to escape with
the assistance of sympathizers. Kerensky had armed the Bolsheviks
and the failed Kornilov Affair had thus prepared the way for
a third, but violent revolt, in October of 1917. The October
Revolution of the atheistic Bolsheviks was successful and ultimately
merciless.
General Count Keller, OSJ,
head of the Imperial Guard, left; Czar Nicholas II, right.
VIII. THE SOSJ RESPONDS TO THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
As noted, the first response against the socialist
revolutionaries of the Kerensky Provisional Government came
from Count Keller, OSJ. The Count immediately started working
with German General Rudiger Von der Goltz to build a German-Russian
army of monarchist volunteers in the Baltic. This cooperation
between the German and Russian orders of St. John was the attempt
to return both Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II and a Romanoff
Czar to their respective thrones.
On September 15, 1917, J. G. B. Bulloch, MD,
first cousin of President Teddy Roosevelt, incorporated the
Order of Lafayette in New York City with an international membership
as a recruiting front for the SOSJ. An American counter revolutionary
effort became immediately prominent since it became apparent
from both government and military intelligence reports that
Jewish anarchists were in the majority in the new Bolshevik
government in St. Petersburg. The revolutionaries had developed
their operational base in the Lower East Side district of New
York City and both the American and Russian Imperial secret
services frantically worked to prevent an expected Bolshevik
revolution in the United States. The American Grand Priory became
isolated due to its support of the first “Bloodless Revolution”
in Russia and thereafter remained in the hands of operatives
of the anti-Bolshevik intelligence communities. The American
Grand Priory of the SOSJ concentrated its activities in NYC,
Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It worked
to defeat the international anarchist movements and to expose
their aligned secret societies.
The Poles responded both to stop the Bolshevik advance into
their territory and to take advantage of their new found independence
from both Russia and Germany. The Polish White Cross was founded
in New York a few days after the Bolshevik Revolution. Its president
was Count Nicholas Potocki, OSJ. His close relative Jerzey Potocki
became Polish Ambassador to the United States. Ignace Paderewski,
the famous pianist, helped to start the Polish White Cross in
New York in October 1917 and used the resources of the American
Ambulance in Russia. His wife, Madame Paderewski, daughter of
Baron Rosen, OSJ, was Patroness of the Polish White Cross. The
Polish effort was both an intelligence operation and relief
service of the old Polish Grand Priory which was now part of
the American Grand Priory. Captain Sidney Reilly, OSJ of MI6
and Colonel William J. Donovan, SMOM, US State Department Intelligence,
were also associates of Ignace Paderewski, who became the first
President of Free Poland.
IX. COUNT KELLER, PRINCE AWALOFF AND GRAND
DUKE CYRIL LEAD THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN AGAINST THE BOLSHEVIKS
After the failed Kornilov Affair and imprisonment,
followed by the October Revolution, many Guard officers were
able to escape and flee to the Don Cossacks in the Ukraine.
There they helped to create the Volunteer Army with the assistance
of Ukrainian separatists. Generals Alekseev, Denikin, Kornilov,
Kolchak and Keller were the early leaders and they started the
Russian Civil War to defeat the Bolsheviks.
Grand Duke Cyril was now the legal heir to
the Russian throne as he was third in line behind the heir of
Czar Nicholas II, his son Alexei and the Czar’s brother
Grand Duke Michael. Grand Duke Cyril gave his support to the
remnant of the SOSJ headed by Count Keller and his fellow Knights.
The Russian Order of St. John rallied to form a secretive organization
of officers and civilian nobility called alternately the Brothers
of the White Cross and the White Cross Society under Generals
Markov and Count Keller and the monarchist politician Markov
II. The Russian Grand Duke Cyril and the German Grand Duke of
Hesse were members of the organization as German monarchists
assisted the White Cross effort to rescue their kin, the Czarina
Alexandra and her family. American Lt. Col. Joseph Boyle and
his machine gun detachment may have been part of this effort
by the Order to rescue members of the Imperial family. Among
the conspirators was the son-in-law of Rasputin and the Czarina's
best friend Anna Vyrubova. Czarina Alexandra delayed the rescue
plans of the Brothers of the White Cross several times in her
effort to regain the throne. Her delays ultimately prevented
the Brotherhood from following through with their plans to free
the Imperial family due to the progressive consolidation of
Bolshevik control. The Imperial family was murdered by the Bolsheviks
in July, 1918. The Czarina had reportedly used the symbol of
the swastika repeatedly during her captivity, had often referred
to the Brothers of the White Cross and had only two books in
her possession during her final captivity. One of them was the
Nilus book containing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These
findings fueled the hatred of the Bolsheviks and of their conspiracy
for global domination. The historical record shows that Count
Keller and most of the well known General officers from the
SOSJ fought for Imperial Russia until killed in action against
the Bolsheviks during the following year.
General Markov had been the Director of the Nicholas Cavalry
School in St. Petersburg. This school was a post graduate school
for the elite cavalry Guard officers most of whom came from
the SOSJ Corps des Pages. Markov organized his Guard officers
on February 12, 1918 and instituted a black Maltese cross badge
for those in his unit. Count Keller, OSJ, was a graduate of
the Nicholas Cavalry School and his uncle had been one of the
last Commandants of the OSJ Corps des Pages. General Keller
used a large plain white Maltese cross breast badge for all
officers under his command. The belief in an international socialist
conspiracy led by Zionists was central to their understanding
of the revolution. Count Keller also worked with monarchist
German General Rudiger Von der Goltz to start a German backed
government in the Baltic and recruited Russian POW’s in
Germany for this army. As noted earlier their combined plan
was to join their forces in an attempt to replace the rightful
monarchs both in Germany and in Russia. Colonel Bermondt was
the chief of counter intelligence for the Southern Army under
Hereditary Knight Commander George Duke Leuktenburg, OSJ. Major
Walter Nicolai, head of all German military intelligence during
World War I, was assigned to work with Bermondt by the famous
German General Ludendorff. They promoted the Protocols of the
Wise Men of Zion and the international conspiracy theory widely
among the White Russian and later among the German troops in
the Baltic.
General Count Keller,
OSJ |
Metropolitan Tikhon, Patriarch
and Saint of the Russian Orthodox Church
|
General Keller, OSJ, had been offered the command
of the Southern Army but insisted on leading only a Russian
monarchist army in the expected campaign against the Bolsheviks.
He believed that Russian patriots would rally to the just cause
and was concerned with conspiratorial elements within both the
German armies and the German state. He eventually accepted the
command of an all-Russian monarchist Northern Army. Metropolitan
Tikhon, who was the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church,
had previously reserved his personal involvement in the counter
revolution. He significantly gave his personal blessing to Count
Keller as the leader of the crusade against the Bolsheviks.
This blessing by the Patriarch of the Eastern Catholic Church
and later the support of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,
which recognized Grand Duke Cyril as the heir to the Russian
throne, helped to sustain the Order of St. John during the difficult
years which followed. Keller adopted a white Maltese Cross breast
plate for his officers and planned to lead a Russian monarchist
army led by Knights of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of
Jerusalem in the crusade against the Bolsheviks. General Keller
was soon fighting Ukrainian Socialist formations and was captured
in Kiev with the remnant of the anti-Bolshevik army in December
1918. Colonel Bermondt had joined Keller's forces in the Ukraine.
Bermondt and many of his fellow Monarchists were once again
jailed. This time they were scheduled for execution. Count Keller
was shot by the Bolsheviks while in captivity. Fortunately a
German army freed many of the Russian officers, including Bermondt,
and took them back to Germany where they were interned near
Berlin in Camp Salzvedel. German Monarchists had taken up the
cause of the Russian White Guard because they faced the same
threat of international Bolshevism from their own Socialist
Weimar Government.
CROSS OF
COUNT KELLER:
IMPORTANTE ORDINE
DI MALTA
Russia, inizi XX Sec.
insegna dell‘ordine "con gioie" in oro, argento,
smalto bianco e diamanti, realizzata con finissimo lavoro a
giorno; al retro del trofeo d‘armi, appiccagnolo biforcato
con marca (in caratteri cirillici) "M. BERSH e Co."
e punzoni per l‘oro; nastro mancante, in antico astuccio
rivestito in marocchino verde scuro, foderato in seta blu. Magnifico
e rarissimo esemplare, per tradizione famigliare, appartenuto
al Tenente Generale conte F.A. Keller, celebre personaggio della
storia russa a cavallo tra l‘inizio del XX Secolo e la
Guerra Civile, ottime condizioni
A jewelled insignia of the
Order in gold, silver, white enamel and diamonds; the reverse
of the trophy with doubled ribbon-ring, this struck with the
cyrillic maker‘s mark "M. BERSH & Co." and
gold assay mark; ribbon, missing; in old, fitted case, covered
with dark green morocco, lined with blue silk. A magnificent
and most rare piece, traditionally belonged to Lt. General Count
Keller, a famous personality of Russian history from the beginning
of XX Century, to the Civil War.
Dim. 7,8 x 3,1 cm.
40.000,00 / 48.000,00 €
SOLD € 41.000,00
X. THE LINEAGE OF THE SOVEREIGN ORDER OF SAINT OF JERUSALEM
The SOSJ ties with the Germans before the war encouraged by
the Russian Grand Prior Grand Duke Vladimir were bearing fruit
for the exiled knights who had survived the Revolution. Beside
his association with Grand Prior William Nelson Cromwell, Colonel
Bermondt now became connected with other members of the American
Grand Priory and to Boris Brasol and Major General Count Cherep
Spiridovich due to their mutual work against the globalist’s
agenda. It must also be remembered that the whereabouts of Grand
Duke Alexander, then regarded as the leader of the OSJ, was
unknown. His fate was uncertain as he was last known to be under
house arrest by the Bolsheviks in the Crimea. It was in Camp
Salzvedel, near Berlin, during January to April 1919 that Colonel
Bermondt re-organized Russian Guard officers to continue the
crusade of the Sovereign Russian Imperial Order of Saint John
of Jerusalem against the Bolsheviks. It had been started by
General Count Keller with the blessing of the Patriarch of the
Russian Orthodox Church. This time the Knights had the legitimate
heir to the Russian Throne, the son of the late grand Duke Vladimir,
the Grand Duke Cyril, as both the Protector of the Order and
financier of the Order's field operations.
The West Volunteer Army was led by
officers who were Knights of Malta. The Russian formations
were led by Knights of the Sovereign Order of Saint John
of Jerusalem. The German formations were led by members
of the German Order of St. John, the Johanniter Orden. |
It is important to state here that the historic Sovereign Order
of St. John of Jerusalem was legitimately continued outside
of Russia by Grand Duke Cyril, the legal heir to the deceased
Czar Nicholas II. The Czarovich, Alexei, had been killed with
his father. Grand Duke Michael had abdicated the throne within
24 hours of accepting it and his whereabouts were now unknown.
With the recognition of the new Protector of the Order, with
the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon, the supreme head of the Russian
Orthodox Church and, as we shall see, with the consent of the
Knights in the United States, the continuation of the OSJ under
Prince Awaloff was successfully accomplished.
A rough translation from Prince Awaloff's
Memoirs.
The Order recognized Grand Duke Cyril as the legal heir and
the leaders of the OSJ field forces were in turn recognized
by the Grand Duke Cyril. The principals of this recognition
have handed down the Order in unbroken fashion to the Knights
of Justice who have continued their work into the 21st century.
There is no other organization that either has claimed in the
past, or claims now, its descent from the Order of St. John
of Jerusalem in Russia that recognized, and was recognized by,
the legitimate heir Grand Duke Cyril immediately after the murder
of Czar Nicholas and his son. Neither can any organization claim
the black mantle of the Order of the Knights of Malta which
has not continuously and publicly stood in opposition to the
satanic conspiracy that relentlessly works toward the destruction
of Christendom.
The West Volunteer Army was led by officers
who were Knights of Malta. The Russian formations were led by
Knights of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. The
German formations were often led by men who were both Knights
of the German Order of St. John, the Johanniter Orden and of
the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
Prince Awaloff-Bermondt,
OSJ |
Major General Graf von der Goltz,
Johanniter Orden
|
On March 4, 1919 by Order number 24 Colonel
Bermondt made the Maltese cross breast badge the emblem of his
SOSJ army and enameled it black in memory of General Graf Keller.
High level German nationalists backed this re-establishment
of the Russian Sovereign Imperial Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
Among them was General Ludendorff who had been Chief of Staff
of the German Army during WWI. His chief intelligence officer
Major Walter Nicholai was also involved. The Protector of the
Order was the legitimate heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke
Cyril Vladimirovich. Grand Duke Cyril continued to finance the
SOSJ venture with the help of the American Grand Priory. Prince
Awaloff and Grand Duke Cyril planned to join with German forces
to drive the Bolsheviks out of the Baltic. This idea to cooperate
with Germany was unique to these Knights of St. John who believed
that Russian-German cooperation was the only way to rid the
world of the Bolsheviks.
In 1919 Colonel Prince Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt,
supported by the Johanniter Orden, the Romanoff Pretender Grand
Duke Cyril, and American financier J. P. Morgan, Jr., OSJ, became
Commander in chief of the Russian Imperial Army. He led the
SOSJ and apparently Johanniter-Orden plan, financed through
attorney W. N. Cromwell, OSJ, American Grand Prior, to clear
the Bolsheviks from the Baltic and to set up a pro-German government.
Most of the officials of what became known in the Fall of 1919
as the West Russian Government were members of the OSJ. Prince
Awaloff recorded much of this information in his memoirs which
he wrote in 1925 in Hamburg, Germany.
In the Fight Against Bolshevism: Memoirs
of General Prince Awaloff Commander-in-Chief of the German-Russian
West Army in the Baltic |
Front
Prince Awaloff's personal banner
of the Graf Keller Corps, Sovereign Order of Saint John
of Jerusalem
|
Reverse
Black Maltese Cross with Crown
of Thorns, memorializes General Graf Keller, OSJ, murdered
by the Bolsheviks
|
XI. THE BALTIC CAMPAIGN OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
Bermondt
was first addressed by the royal title of Prince Awaloff in
September, 1919. Prince Awaloff states that he was adopted at
this time by Prince Michael Awaloff from whom he gained the
royal title. Records are unavailable and since there was uncertainty
in 1919 about where the title came from it is possible that
Bermondt was elected Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of
St. John of Jerusalem which would have given him the royal title
of Prince. We must wait for further information to confirm this
suspicion and we therefore retain the claims of Grand Duke Alexander
as Grand Master during this period. During the Baltic campaign,
Rudolf Baron von Engelhardt and Baron Engelhardt-Schnellenstein,
both close relatives of Lt. Grand Master Alphons Heribert Scipio
Baron von Engelhardt-Schnellenstein (1954-1956) and Admiral
Felix Count von Luckner, who also became the Lt. Grand Master
of the OSJ (1962-1966) worked with Prince Awaloff in the Baltic
venture. The Bavarian Freikorps, some of whom were associated
with the Stewart Pretender, Crown Prince Rupprecht, wore the
Maltese Cross. (The connection between the Royal Stuart Jacobite
Pretender in Bavaria and the Order is not fully understood.
We do know that General Hume did have a relationship with the
Crown Prince.)
The relics and icon were rescued from the SOSJ
Priory at the Gatchina Palace outside of St. Petersburg in October,
1919, by men of the army of the White Russian General Yudenitch.[1]
They were brought to Reval, Estonia, and delivered to the former
Russian Master of Court Ceremonies Count Alexei Ignatiev. Ignatiev
was head of the Russian White Cross in Estonia, a leader of
the Russian SOSJ and a son of the murdered Count Ignatiev, Commander
of the SOSJ Chevalier Guards. The relics and icon were then
delivered to the SOSJ headquarters in Mitau and there were solemnly
received by Prince Awaloff and General Von der Goltz. Later
the relics and icon were placed in the hands of the Romanov
Queen Mother, Dagmar Feodorovna. She kept the relics at Villa
Hvidore, her residence in exile near Copenhagen, until her death
in 1928. Awaloff proclaimed himself Governor-General of Western
Russia for a brief time in late 1919. The short-lived government
in the Duchy of Courland, Latvia, with headquarters in Mitau,
was the closest that the Order had come to gaining a permanent
sovereign territory since the loss of Malta in 1798.
There were other plans by Russian exiles to
retake their country. One of them was planned and undertaken
by Baron Taube as potential Secretary of State who enlisted
Russian Jewish bankers to fund General Yudenitch in an attempt
to retake St. Petersburg with a Northwestern Army. They also
would have supported Grand Duke Cyril as the new Czar. Their
White Russian army in northwestern Russia ultimately failed
in its attempt to take St. Petersburg. Awaloff refused to place
his command under General Yudenitch and Baron Taube, whom he
considered to be controlled by “conspiratorial forces,”
that is, the Jewish bankers. Baron Taube eventually became an
antagonist of the SOSJ.
Knight Commander Raben, OSJ
|
Lt. Grand Master Felix Graf von
Luckner, OSJ
|
The Western Russian Volunteer Army of Prince
Awaloff initially gained advantage and took Riga from the Bolsheviks.
However, the British Naval Squadron that had been supporting
the left flank of General Yudenitch’s drive into St. Petersburg
for political reasons abandoned Yudenitch and directed its guns
upon Awaloffs’ forces. This intervention caused the defeat
of both the SOSJ anti-Bolshevik force of Prince Awaloff and
of the drive into St. Petersburg by General Yudenitch. The Knights
of St. John ultimately retreated into Germany due to lack of
support from the socialist Weimar Government and the treason
of the Entente British and French governments. These entities
propped up the Bolshevik regime which was about to crumble.
The result of this intervention was 75 years of Communist dictatorship
for a large portion of the world. The Knights of this army of
the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem became known as
the “Baltic Brotherhood.”
When the SOSJ was exiled from the Russian Imperial
City its historic mission as defender of the Catholic Church
and secondary mission to defend Orthodox Russia brought it into
opposition to those Orders of St. John that were connected to
Freemasonry. The Order had been forced from Malta by the revolutionaries.
It was widely known that Grand Master Czar Paul I had been killed
by Freemasons, and that Czar Alexander II was killed by anarchists
with cabalistic backgrounds. It was acknowledged that these
same revolutionary philosophies were now responsible for the
loss of yet another Christian monarchy, and for the deaths of
Czar Nicholas II and his family. This included, among the many
members of the OSJ who were murdered by the Bolsheviks: the
Patroness of the American Grand Priory relief operation, Grand
Duchess Tatiana, the Patroness of the White Cross, Czarina Alexandra
and the Protector and leader of the SOSJ, Czar Nicholas II.
Grand Duke Alexander and his immediate family
survived the Bolshevik purge of the Romanovs during a long captivity
in the Crimea. Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander’s friend,
Major Warburton, was the U.S. Military Charge d’Affaires
in Paris at the end of the war. When rescued by the British
navy Alexander went straight to Paris. He attempted to get into
the international peace talks which followed WW I to plea for
help for those trapped inside Russia. He was refused admission
to the peace conference and all of his personal efforts failed
to save any of the Russian Imperial Family, who had, unknown
to him, already been murdered by the Bolsheviks. Thereafter,
it appears that Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander could not
cope with his involvement in the first revolution which installed
the Provisional Government. All of his brothers were killed
by the Bolsheviks soon after they seized power from the Kerensky
regime. The Grand Duke spent the rest of his life involved in
spiritualism, apparently attempting to gain forgiveness from
his murdered brother-in-law, Czar Nicholas II.
XII. THE AMERICAN GRAND PRIORY JOINS THE FIGHT
AGAINST THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONALE
The American Grand Priory was peopled with
the scions of Wall Street and the “Eastern Establishment”.
These men and women, many of them active or reserve officers
in the military, worked with the fledgling western military
intelligence communities and made the Grand Priory the first
civilian foreign intelligence organization in the United States.
Their intimate associates included the brothers John Foster
and Allen Welsh Dulles who were nephews of U.S. Secretary of
State Robert Lansing. Both were Wall Street lawyers who worked
directly for William Nelson Cromwell, OSJ. John Foster Dulles
eventually became President Eisenhauer’s Secretary of
State, and Allen Welsh Dulles was instrumental in founding the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. One of the Chicago Crane sons
became Asst. Secretary of State under Lansing. Another close
associate was Wall Street lawyer “Wild Bill” William
J. Donovan, who founded the Office of Strategic Services, and
eventually became a knight of the SMOM. As a result of the “success”
of SOSJ international ventures President Woodrow Wilson and
his friend Colonel Edward M. House had created “The Inquiry”
at the American Grand Priory headquarters on upper Broadway
in New York City in 1917. This early “think tank”
became the internationalist advisory Council on Foreign Relations
in 1921, which, ironically, is widely thought to be one of the
controlling institutions of the “One World Conspiracy.”
The American Knights of Malta continued to be active in humanitarian
affairs to provide relief for the refugees, the poor and the
disabled which the war had created. The American Irish White
Cross relief effort was operated by future founders of the American
SMOM, James Phelan and Judge Morgan J. O’Brien.
Grand Duke Cyril became the head of a secret
army scattered around the world in which the SOSJ played a significant
role. In New York City alone there were reportedly three thousand
former White Russian military officers organizing for counter-revolution.
The SOSJ was an important participant in counter-revolutionary
engagement in Eastern Europe throughout the 20th century. It
engaged in small unit warfare in the regions controlled by the
Communists.
Cherep Spiridovich was personally presented
to J. Edgar Hoover by the US Ambassador to Romania, T. Tileston
Wells, and was supported by Grand Duke Cyril’s U.S. representative,
Boris Brasol, OSJ, by U.S. Treasury Secretary, Robert McAdoo
and of course by the Chicago Crane family. Many of the White
Russian armed forces were encamped in the Balkan countries after
the Russian Civil War. These forces, often led by Knights of
Malta, represented the “fifty American oriented strongholds”
which were promised in Eastern Europe by Cherep Spiridovich
to Hoover and Lansing during his presentations.
Presented
as a private alternative to the League of Nations, the A-L-S
(Anglo-Latino-Slavic) League, which was the remnant of the SOSJ
in Eastern Europe, had been a bulwark against the spread of
Islam. It now was promoted as a force against the new menace
of Bolshevism. This A-L-S League was soon being called the Anti-Bolshevist
League. Cromwell, the Dulles brothers, and the Masonic Knights
Templar T. Tileston Wells founded, in 1920, the Society of Friends
of Romania as a successor to the American Romanian Relief Council
with the help of the Romanian Royal Family. Queen Marie was
a prominent member of the OSJ. There is evidence that Count
A. Cherep-Spiridovich’s presentation of the Anglo-Latino-Slavic
League to J. Edgar Hoover of the Justice Department’s
Bureau of Investigation, and to Secretary of State Robert Lansing
was the impetus for founding the Society of Friends of Albania,
and later the Society of Friends of Yugoslavia. In 1941, the
American Friends of Yugoslavia was begun by Wm. J. Donovan,
founder of the OSS and Hamilton Fish Armstrong, long serving
First Secretary of the CFR. At this time, the “Little
Entente” was created by the Balkan countries as a mutual
protection pact, and the American “societies of friends”
allowed for civilian “access” in the fledgling efforts
to contain the Bolsheviks.
The Order gathered intelligence on the international
revolutionary movements. The SOSJ, under Czar Kirill I, engaged
in psychological warfare operations including the distribution
of anti-Bolshevist information such as the “Protocols
of the Elders of Zion.” This document allegedly details
a plot by elite Jews to control the world through finance, and
it has been the cause of political and social unrest during
the past one hundred years. Because it was an incontrovertible
fact that the Communist movement in Russia was dominated by
Jews from New York, the American military intelligence community
continued to join the ranks of the SOSJ as sworn enemies of
the “International Conspiracy.” Among those included
were the following: Colonel Harris Ayres Houghton, MD, Colonel
John Jacob Astor, Major General Ralph Van Deman, Colonel William
Sohier Bryant, MD, Major General Frederick Dent Grant, Colonel
Nicholas Biddle, Major Barclay Harding Warburton, Major Walter
Miller, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt,
Major John B. Trevor and Captain Sidney Reilly. All of these
prominent members of the armed forces have close association
with their successors in the Military Affairs Committee of the
SOSJ that are found in the Order records well into the 1980’s.
Civilian experts in the early 20th century on the so-called
“Jewish Problem” became involved with the SOSJ.
Among them were Paquita de Shishmareff, Fr. Denis Fahey, Lady
Edith Starr Miller Queenborough, John B. Trevor, Jr. and Princess
Julia Grant Cantacuzene. Much of their knowledge had been gained
from the work of Monseigneur Jouin of France, who, with the
blessing of the pope, researched and wrote about secret societies
involved with the occult and humanist movements. Father Ernest
Jouin appears to have been associated with A. Cherep Spriridovich,
OSJ in this research during the early decades of the last century.
All the work of the knights of the SOSJ to include research
and education efforts did help the Vatican and the monarchies
of Sweden, Spain and Denmark to survive. Unfortunately, the
knights failed to prevent the collapse of the Balkan monarchies
that resulted from the Allied “victory” after WWII.
XIII. GERMAN NATIONALISTS NURTURE THE WHITE
RUSSIAN
GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE
The Russian Grand Priory of the Sovereign Order
of St. John of Jerusalem had been first re-organized by the
monarchists in the Ukraine as an anti-Bolshevik army. German
General Ludendorf assigned Walter Nicholai, the leader of German
Military Intelligence during WWI, to develop the Order’s
intelligence service for Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich. After
the defeat of the army in the Baltic campaign the OSJ essentially
became a paramilitary intelligence agency. In 1916 Russian Secret
Service Lieutenant Boris Brasol had been stationed permanently
in New York City. He developed a career as an anti-Bolshevik
expert and informer with American Military Intelligence and
the fledgling intelligence department of the United States Department
of State after the Bolshevik Revolution. Boris Brasol and Cherep
Spiridovich were the principal SOSJ intelligence operatives
in the United States. Brasol helped Major General Cherep Spiridovich
redirect SOSJ activities in the West against international anarchism
and the globalist agenda. They both championed the validity
of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. An associate of Prince
Awaloff, General Constantin Sakharov, was head of the military
division of the Russian Grand Priory. That division came to
be known under the front name of Russian National Society. The
Russian National Society worked from offices at 5 Columbia Circle
in Manhattan from 1921.
Prince Awaloff and Leaders of the
Order of St. John in 1921
|
Grand Duke Cyril, the Heir Apparent, declared
himself Protector of the Russian Throne in July, 1922. He positioned
his government in Lubeck, Germany where he was titled from 1918
to 1938 as Sovereign Prince Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church.
His wife’s ancestral home was a castle in Coberg, Bavaria,
and this became his initial residence. He created his Court
and permanent residence on the seacoast of France in St. Briac,
Brittany. Supported by nationalist elements of the German government
since the Russian Civil War, he had been the nominal head of
the pro-German Western Russian Government in northwest Europe
in 1919. Walter Nicholai, the leader of German Military Intelligence
during WWI, expanded the SOSJ intelligence service for Grand
Duke Cyril Vladimirovich in order to closely cooperate with
Aufbau. Aufbau was the White Russian monarchical organization
which was founded to coordinate the future economic recovery
of Russia.
Colonel Nicholai founded Organization Consul
(C), a “full-service” intelligence operation which
matched the Bolsheviks in ability to assassinate leaders of
the opposition. The strategy used for the anti-Bolshevik campaign
was taken from the Kornilov Affair. A coalition of patriotic
societies had been made to ensure the allegiances of the participants
in the planned St. Petersburg coup. A similar strategy was repeated
in the United States by John B. Trevor’s Coalition of
Patriotic, Fraternal and Civic Societies. During the Munich
“Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923 the National Socialists
used the United Patriotic Associations of Bavaria. Numerous
small organizations, all dedicated to patriotic causes, but
invariably anti-Bolshevik, were being organized for future use
by militant nationalists.
The OSJ propaganda effort continued both in
the United States and in Europe with centers in Belgrade, Paris,
Erfurt, Hamburg, Chicago and New York City. Nicholas Markov
II edited in 1920 the White Cross anti-Bolshevik journal in
Hamburg and later moved to Paris. Still later, in the 1930’s
he joined Ulrich Fleischauer’s Welt Dienst in Erfurt.
Henry Ford from the United States published his own literature
and financed a detective agency with headquarters in Chicago
and New York City to assist in uncovering the global plans of
“The International Jew”. He helped to finance the
similar pursuits which came under the direction of Grand Duke
Cyril’s intelligence service. This expanded and culminated
in a vast propaganda arm which worked against the international
conspiracy from government run offices in the German Third Reich
throughout WWII. Beside Markov II, the Baltic Germans Ullrich
Fleischauer, Shabellski-Bork, Alfred Rosenberg, Fedor Vinberg
and Eugen von Engelhardt, of the Fichte-Bund, were among those
active in the information campaign until the closing days of
WWII. All over Europe and the United States, small print shops
produced information which was distributed at cost in an effort
to stay the spread of militant Socialism. The headquarters for
the centralized educational campaign during the lifetime of
Czar Kirill I was in Erfurt, Germany. Until his death in 1938,
Grand Duke Cyril had been the chosen candidate of Hitler for
Czar of Russia when the Soviet Union was defeated. After his
death the center for the propaganda campaign was moved to Hamburg,
Germany under the direction of Alfred Rosenberg.
XIV. THE SOSJ GOVERNMENT IS MOVED TO THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
Because many exiled Russians were seeking permanent
residence in the United States and Canada, from where much of
the financial support for the exiled Russian Imperial Court
originated, the shift of SOSJ leadership to the American Grand
Priory was a natural process. Baron Rosen, former Russian Ambassador
to the United States, and now head of Grand Duke Cyril’s
Intelligence operation in the United States, was run down and
killed by an automobile in New York City on December 31, 1921.
Prince Awaloff was accused as a terrorist in connection with
Organization Consul and expelled from Germany in 1922 by the
Socialist Weimar Government. He and Ataman Semenoff traveled
to New York City and were involved with meetings at the Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel offices of American Grand Prior William Nelson Cromwell.
This resulted in the formal re-establishment of the Sovereign
Council of the Order on September 5, 1922. Cromwell became the
President of the Sovereign Council of the SOSJ. Prince Awaloff
returned to Europe later that year to continue the work of the
Counter-Revolution, and the American Grand Priory assumed operational
control of the SOSJ. Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander, as mentioned
previously, continued to have little to do with the SOSJ after
the Civil War. He spent much of his time traveling and writing
his memoirs and books on spirituality.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1919 |
Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich |
Cmndr-in-Chief Prince Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt |
|
W.N. Cromwell |
|
Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich |
1922 |
Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich |
Cmndr-in-Chief Prince Pavel
Awaloff-Bermondt |
W.N. Cromwell
President of the American
Grand Priory: John J. Sheridan
President of the White Cross
Hospital & Relief Assoc.: W.W. Butcher
President of the Polish White
Cross: Count Potocki
President of the Latino -
Slavic League: Major General Cherep Spirodovich
|
J.P. West |
J.G.B. Bulloch, MD
Chancellor of the American
Grand Priory: H.J. Bowen
Chancellor of the White Cross
Hospital & Relief Assoc.: A. MacNaughton |
Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich |
The Order was re-organized after the establishment
of the Sovereign Council in New York City. The plan centered
on strategies to counter the Bolshevist threat to Christendom
and was patterned on Major General Arthur Cherep Spiridovich’s
Anglo- Latino-Slavic League and on the patriotic organization
coalitions. Patriotic organizations in the United States were
associated with John B. Trevor’s American Coalition of
Patriotic, Civic and Fraternal Societies. During most of the
interwar years they were under the direction of the President
of the Sovereign Council, Cromwell, who had his offices at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Dr. James Gaston Baillie Bulloch, MD was the
archivist of the Order from 1922 to 1928 and the Grand Chancellor
from 1928 until his death in 1934. Bulloch was one of the principals
who chartered the American Heraldry Society in 1924 in the District
of Columbia from which were recruited candidates for the Order
of St. John. Charles Pichel and William Sohier Bryant, MD operated
the American Heraldry Society in New York City out of an office
in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with which they attempted to provide
the necessary noble titles to prospective American Knights from
1925 to 1931. Cromwell apparently resigned from the Council
at about the same time, circa 1931, that Pichel and Bryant moved
their office to 1730 Broadway in New York City. The principle
organization for recruiting Knights from the Hispanic countries
of the Americas was the Order of St. John the Baptist of America.
It was led from 1923 by Francis C. Nicholas. Upon his death
in 1937 it was led by Colonel Dr. Dimas-Aruti, DDM and following
him by Major Alan Weaver Hazelton after 1945. There was an aligned
Order of St. John the Baptist of Puerto Rico and an Orden de
San Juan Bautista de Cadiz, Spain which has survived until the
present day. Pichel converted to Catholicism in 1932 and soon
became a principal of the SOSJ through his mentor Grand Prior
Fr. Joseph Paul Chodkiewicz, a leader of the Polish White Cross
in upstate New York. Pichel became Grand Chancellor of the SOSJ
in the heyday of the National Socialist Movement after the death
of J. G. B. Bulloch, MD in 1934. The President of the Sovereign
Council from 1932 to 1944 was Colonel Dr. William Sohier Bryant,
MD, OSJ. After Cromwell stepped down from the Sovereign Council
in 1932 and Czar Kirill I died in 1938, Dr. Bryant and Grand
Chancellor Pichel gained complete control of the Order.
On June 24, 1925 Eleazar Wilson of Philadelphia became Grand
Prior of America. In 1925 Captain Sidney G. Reilly, founder
of the Anti-Bolshevist League, was lured from the United States
into Russia and killed by the Bolsheviks. The exploits of Reilly
later prompted the “James Bond” series. In 1926
Cherep Spiridovich incorporated the Anti-Bolshevist Publishing
Association of the Anti-Bolshevist League in Albany, N.Y. with
H. V. Broenstrupp and G. M. Sykes. This was an SOSJ project
of the Kirill intelligence service planned by Captain Reilly
and by Cherep Spiridovich. It was intended to provide propaganda
about the danger of the internationalist’s agenda and
was the continuation of the publishing operation of Cherep Spiridovich
in Paris from 1904 to 1920, known as the Agence Latine. It had
been continued in 1921 for a few years by Henry Ford and his
newspaper the Dearborn Independent. Major General Cherep Spiridovich,
OSJ was assassinated at his residence on Staten Island, N. Y.,
a few months after re-starting the publishing operation. Boris
Brasol provided the funds to bury this leader of the SOSJ. Cherep
Spiridovich was one of the principal founders of the American
Grand Priory of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
H. V. Broenstrupp, OSJ published “The Hidden Hand”
by Cherep Spiridovich shortly after the assassination of his
adoptive father.
The SOSJ continued to raise funds for the relief
of Russian exiles. The “Monday Supper Opera Club”
was one of the society programs. Leaders of the relief fund
drives included the following: Captain George Djamgaroff, Mrs.
Henry P. Loomis, Princess Julia Grant Cantacuzene, Representative
Hamilton Fish, III, Count Paul Ignatieff, President of Columbia
University Nicholas Murray Butler and many of the displaced
former royals of Russia and Eastern Europe. Djamgaroff and Loomis
were close friends of Czar Krill and Czarina Victoria Melita.
In 1927, after the assassination of Count Cherep-Spiridovich,
the SMOM started their American Association. This founding of
the American Association of the Sovereign Military Order of
Malta was the unintended result of SOSJ success at fund raising.
The new Catholic association overshadowed the SOSJ and placed
its future in jeopardy. In response to SMOM propaganda, many
members, such as Colonel Edgar Erskine Hume, MD, left the SOSJ.
The remaining members were predominantly nationalistic, anti-Communist,
senior military and intelligence officers. Some Protestant former
SOSJ knights joined a new English Venerable Order American Chapter.
It is probable that the Episcopalian Archbishop of New York,
William T. Manning, a good friend of N. M. Butler and the Serbian
Orthodox Church, was among this group.
Fr. J. P. Chodkiewicz and exiled Polish leaders
started the Polish Nobility Association in 1927. He continued
Cherep Spiridovich’s Slavonic Society work, which focused
on pan-Slavism and he named it the Pan-Slavic Commonwealth of
Nations. Cherep-Spiridovich’s work had resulted in the
Intermarium Movement. Cherep Spiridovich had suggested to President
of the Sovereign Council W. N. Cromwell a project similar to
the Panama Canal which would create a navigable waterway link
from the Baltic to the Black Sea. SOSJ knights leading the Counter
Revolutionary Anti-Bolshevist League continued to promote the
theme of a continuous Eastern European buffer zone of free,
independent and usually monarchical states. The OSJ was also
involved with the Columbian Lighthouse Project in the Dominican
Republic as part of their pan-American project. N. M. Butler
was the American head of the lighthouse project and is credited
with bringing it to final completion.
XV. THE EXILED ROMANOV FAMILY DEFEATS ITSELF
Grand Duke Cyril declared himself Czar Kirill
I on August 31, 1924. The White Russians in exile had a power
struggle for the throne which started during the Russian Civil
War. The failure to make a successful coalition of exiled forces
which resulted made all their efforts to retake Russia from
the Bolsheviks ineffective. Though Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevich
received more support until his death in 1929, as time passed
Cyril was recognized as the rightful heir to the throne. The
senior Knights of Malta on the Sovereign Council in the United
States always supported Grand Duke Cyril, and, as noted, they
became very influential because of financial support to his
cause from men as prominent as Henry Ford.
Upon the death of the Dowager Empress in 1928, her daughter,
Grand Duchess Xenia, became a Patroness of the SOSJ. She sent
the OSJ relics to the new ROCA Cathedral in Berlin where Prince
Awaloff resided. Records show that the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan
Anthony took receipt of the relics in Berlin. Grand Prior Grand
Duke Alexander ensured that his wife Xenia, sister of Czar Nicholas
II, did not separate the relics and icon. Colonel Vasilieff,
the last Czarist Chief of Police, died in 1928.
The illness and death of the Queen Mother in
1928 also prompted a group of SOSJ Russian Hereditary Commanders,
who were not tainted by revolutionary support for the Kerensky
regime, to attempt to reorganize the Russian Grand Priory in
Paris. Most of them had supported the Russian pretender Grand
Duke Nicholas and the pro-Entente Monarchist Supreme Council
in Paris, but they still asked Grand Duke Alexander to be their
Grand Prior. They then pled as the “Russian Grand Priory”
for admission to the SMOM in Rome, but were denied due to their
Orthodox religion. Their “expert” legal counsel
was Baron Michael von Taube, who at the time was under the erroneous
impression that the SOSJ had been dissolved in Russia in 1817.
This was the same Taube, who as a minion of the so-called Conspiracy,
had been an adversary of Prince Awaloff during the campaign
against the Bolsheviks in Western Russia in 1919. Because of
his reputation as an expert on Russian history, von Taube created
widespread doubt about the historical continuation of the SOSJ
in Russia. His theory became the legend of the suppression of
the Order in Russia, which is still widely believed even in
the 21st century. The Order still retains letters from Prince
Serge Troubetzkoy, OSJ which discuss von Taube, who was a Roman
Catholic, and his extravagant lifestyle in Rome at the expense
of impoverished Russian exiles. It was not until 1950 that von
Taube found the documentary evidence that caused him to change
his mind, and after which, he recanted his belief in the 1817
demise of the SOSJ in Russia. When the facts about the Russian
survival of the SOSJ became known in 1950, von Taube disclaimed
the Prince Awaloff, Vladimirovichi and King Alexander I succession
of the SOSJ in an attempt to save his reputation. He was little
more than an agent of the SMOM at this time. However, the damage
had been done, and because of the deaths of so many of the SOSJ
royals, his disclaimer went unchallenged and has had longstanding
effect on the Order.
Shipping receipts show that the SOSJ relics and icon were moved
again in 1932, and sent to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Grand
Duchess Xenia and her close associate Prince Dolguruky, one
of the 1928 Paris Hereditary Commanders, were signatories on
the transfer. An Officer Candidate School similar to the Corps
des Pages had been started in Belgrade. Many of the cadets from
the Russian military academies had been sent there after the
defeat of the White Russians. (The cadets from this school fought
as a corps for the Nazi’s in 1945 during the fall of Berlin).
The Yugoslavian capital was becoming the White Russian center
for military activity. Charles Pichel, OSJ directed a study
on the Maltese Nobility done by Lord Dorchester of England which
assisted Grand Duke Cyril and Grand Duchess Victoria Melita.
For this research, he was named Grand Chancellor of the SOSJ
in 1934 upon the death of J.G.B. Bulloch.
Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander died in France
in 1933, followed closely by many leading SOSJ members from
either natural causes or assassination. SOSJ Protector King
Alexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated in 1934 on a trip
to France. Queen Marie of Romania and Czarina Victoria Melita
Romanov, grand daughters of Queen Victoria, both died in 1936.
Mdme Paderewski, Patroness of the Polish White Cross, died in
Switzerland in 1936. The death of Czar Kirill I in 1938 left
the SOSJ without a Protector for the first time since the 12th
century.
XVI. THE SOSJ SUPPORTS FASCISM TO DEFEAT BOLSHEVISM
The death of Grand Master G. D. Alexander coincided
with the victory of the NAZI party in Germany. Prince Pavel
Awaloff-Bermondt was elected the 74th Grand Master of the SOSJ
in 1933. Colonel Dr. William Sohier Bryant, MD became President
of the Sovereign Council. The SOSJ made alliances with various
National Socialist movements believing this to be the best solution
to defeat “Jewish Bolshevism.” Grand Master Prince
Awaloff focused on developing the military activities and intelligence
work of the Order probably as a consequence of his long military
and paramilitary career. The Order started a Grand Priory in
Denmark in 1934 named the Sovereign Order of the Hospital of
St. John of Jerusalem in Denmark. It was founded by Prince Awaloff
and was led by Danish National Socialist, Episcopalian Archbishop
Preben Wencke. Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark was once Grand
Chancellor of the Grand Priory.
Grand Master Prince Awaloff became head of the Russian Fascist
Party in Germany, called the Russian National Liberation Movement
(ROND). Awaloff was named to this position by the German Chancellor,
Adolf Hitler. Awaloff was apparently a double agent, as he is
known to have been associated with “Wild Bill” William
J. Donovan, founder of the Office of Strategic Services, and
American spy-masters W N Cromwell, OSJ and Allen Welsh Dulles
before, during and after WWII. Awaloff’s friend, Constantin
Sakharov, was again named the military leader of this organization
(ROND), which was the successor to Kirill’s secret army
organization in Germany. Prince Anastase Vonsiatsky and Howard
Broenstrupp led the fledgling Russian Nationalist field force
in the United States, which was headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut.
Paul Winter, OSJ, long time associate of Grand Chancellor Pichel
and former KKK leader from New York and Philadelphia, was involved
with the American Nationalists. In 1933, Pichel contacted Germany
through Hitlers’s friend Putzi Hanfstaengel in an effort
to become the German Chancellor’s personal representative
in the United States. These Russian and American Nationalists
were now coordinating their anti-Bolshevik publishing activity
with Ulrich Fleischauer’s Welt Dienst with offices in
Erfurt, Germany.
German Lt. Ulrich Fleischauer was in charge of this Welt Dienst
publishing concern which inherited the campaign of the American
Anti-Bolshevist Publishing Association of Cherep Spiridovich
and Sidney Reilly. Translated as World Service, and known before
this time in France as Service Mondial, the SOSJ publishing
effort had actually been started in 1904 by Cherep Spiridovich
in Paris. At that time it was called Agence Latine. When the
Paris operation of Cherep Spiridovich was exposed by the Bolshevists
in 1919, he was able to convince Henry Ford to succeed him by
using the Dearborn Independent. The German agency Welt Dienst
had originated in Hamburg where it published a journal called
the White Cross in 1920. Baltic Germans of the SOSJ to include
Fleischauer and Markov II had originated the anti-Bolshevist
journal sharing information with Cherep Spiridovich. Eventually
the Welt Dienst operation came under the administration of Alfred
Rosenberg after the death of Czar Kirill I but operations continued
in Erfurt. The American Grand Priory also restarted this propaganda
in the United States in 1936, and it was called Edmondson Economic
Service. Pichel operated a similar “information service”
for the SOSJ called “Crux New Service” from Leonia,
New Jersey from 1939 to 1945. Due to pressure from the government
and from the press both Edmondson and Pichel moved the Order
operations into the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania after 1945.
The efforts to expose a Jewish controlled world conspiracy,
considered by many as anti-Semitic, were continued by the SOSJ
into the 1950’s. Thereafter it became politically and
economically impossible due to the use of the court system by
the liberal establishment.
In 1936 Count Jerzy Potocki, OSJ, was the Polish Ambassador
to Washington, D. C. When the Second World War started in 1939,
he was instrumental in restarting White Cross relief and intelligence
gathering programs of the Polish American and Canadian-Polish
Ambulance Corps. The Commission for Polish Relief, Inc. was
run by Count Jerzy Potocki, OSJ and Chauncey McCormick, OSJ
of Chicago. In 1940, Mrs. Richard Teller Crane and Chauncey
McCormick represented the American White Cross and the Committee
for Polish Relief, which raised funds for the National Polish
Army of General Haller, OSJ. Nicholas M. Butler also had a fund
raiser for General Haller at Columbia University. Colonel William
J. Donovan was President of the Paderewski Fund for Polish Relief,
Inc. He led the intelligence service and coordinated with Paderewski,
Count Jerzy Potocki and U. S. Ambassador to Poland J. Drexel
Biddle.
Due to the impending advance of the Nazis into Yugoslavia in
1941, the Order moved the relics and icon from Belgrade to the
Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Cetinje, Montenegro. Prince Awaloff,
Queen Marie of Yugoslavia, her aunt, Queen Elena of Italy, King
Carol of Romania and Grand Duchess Militza were all involved
in this decision. They feared the Nazis would take the relics
and icon because of their keen interest in historic objects
with legendary power. The Order lost possession of these items
because of the Communist takeover of the Balkans at the end
of the war. However, the famous icon and relics remain to the
present time in Cetinje, Montenegro. The icon is on display
in the National Museum, and the relics are in the Serbian Orthodox
Monastery.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1934 |
Prince GM Gen. Pavel Awaloff |
|
Dr. W. S. Bryant, MD |
Fr. J.P. Chodkiewicz |
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
Czar Kirill I |
1938 |
Prince GM Gen. Pavel Awaloff |
|
Dr. W. S. Bryant, MD |
Fr. J.P. Chodkiewicz |
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
XVII. LIBERALS USE THE AMERICAN COURTS TO SILENCE
AMERICAN
ANTI-COMMUNISTS
The alliance with fascist organizations cast
doubts on the honorable purposes of the Order. As a result of
this, exposure by the Dies Committee in 1939 and later the Great
Sedition Trials of the 1940’s, a second exodus from the
Order occurred. While the politically connected members of the
Order including W. N. Cromwell, the Dulles Brothers, Representative
Hamilton Fish, III, Senator Jack B. Tenney, Clarence “Buzzy”
Hewes and Robert R. McCormick were insulated due to their celebrity,
other Knights were easy targets for the liberal establishment.
In 1939 the Order of St. John of Jerusalem
was mentioned in Congressional hearings investigating pro-fascist
American movements. The Order leadership then made the decision
to conceal information and though Pichel edited the SOSJ publication,
Crux New Service, from Leonia, New Jersey between 1940 and 1945,
there is little evidence of the Order’s activities during
the Second World War. This continued until the headquarters
was moved in 1945 to Pennsylvania. Continuing Grand Master Prince
Awaloff’s lead, many knights started “right-wing”
organizations as a means of providing a militant response to
the rapid growth of international Communism.
In the 1940’s, twenty-seven Americans were charged by
the U. S. Attorney General with conspiring to destroy the morale
of the American armed forces. A massive show trial, known as
the Great Sedition Trial, was conducted for the purpose of connecting
these individuals to a conspiracy thought to involve the German
Propaganda Ministry and anti-Communists in the United States.
The facts immediately were brought out in well publicized show
trials that many of these Americans were involved in efforts,
being orchestrated by the German World Service, to expose the
international conspiracy of the Bolsheviks, Zionists and Socialists.
The unintended backlash of the trial was that these defendants
were shown to be mostly Christian American patriots who were
determined to expose the Communists, Internationalists and atheists
who were radically changing society in the United States and
in Allied countries. Charges were dropped by the government,
but not before the defendants were ruined financially. This
led to the “McCarthy Era” and further “show
trials” that were, this time, aimed at the Left. California
State Senator Jack B. Tenney, OSJ, Attorney General of the Order
from 1938 to 1944, headed a state commission to ferret subversives,
such as Communists, Zionists and Fascists, in California, especially
from the media industry. Of course most of his efforts were
directed against the Communists and Zionists.
California State Senator Sir Jack
B. Tenney, OSJ Attorney General from 1938-1944
|
“The CIA and
FBI are tinker toys compared to the ADL.” “We
are beginning to understand something of the magnitude
of the ADL’s operations. We are beginning to appreciate
the vast spy network sprawling over the nation and throughout
the whole world. Our imagination is staggered by its apparent
control of the avenues of communication.” “Their
secret agents spy upon American citizens. Extensive files
and dossiers are compiled on those with whom they disagree.
Through their multitudinous controls of the media of communication,
they are capable of destroying reputations and silencing
all rebuttal.” (Congressional Record, Dec. 6, 1971)
|
Red Fascism, a book by Senator Jack
B. Tenney, OSJ |
Bryant became implicated in the Great Sedition
Trial when his name appeared on anti-government correspondence
involving William Dudley Pelley and Howard Victor Broenstrupp.
Trevor’s American Coalition of Patriotic, Civil and Fraternal
Societies was also named during the proceedings. Bryant, formerly
the personal physician of President Grover Cleveland and a Masonic
Knight Templar, found the negative publicity of the trial too
controversial, and he dropped out of the Order thereby leaving
Grand Chancellor Pichel to name Edmondson as President of the
Sovereign Council. As noted earlier, because of liberal governmental
and media pressure, Pichel, Edmondson and even Paul M. Winter
moved to the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania after 1945.
Robert E. Edmondson, a noted anti-internationalist author, became
President of the Sovereign Council in 1944.
By 1944, the SOSJ was working closely with
German General Reinhard Gehlen’s “Abteilung Fremde
Heere Ost Gehlens” (Foreign Forces East). Robert Edmondson
of Scranton, Pennsylvania was President of the Sovereign Council
from 1944 to 1948, but the control of the Order was firmly in
the hands of Grand Chancellor Pichel. The Convent was moved
to Shickshinny, Pennsylvania in 1945. This was an area in which
Eastern Europeans had been relocating for years. In 1946, the
Polish White Cross of Baltimore bought an ambulance for Warsaw
and donated it though the offices of Nicholas Murray Butler.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1944 |
Prince GM Gen. Pavel Awaloff |
|
Robert Edmondson |
|
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
XVIII. THE ORDER ENTRENCHES ITSELF FOR THE COLD
WAR
The SOSJ had lost the majority of its Russian
and European membership during the last phases of WWI when the
Russian Guard Divisions were thrown into battle in tragic fashion.
British and French General Staffs directed all battlefield strategy,
and therefore, many suspected that the slaughter of the elite
of their allied Russian forces was part of the globalist’s
agenda. This carnage was followed in 1919 by further military
betrayal which permanently defeated the SOSJ Knights and the
forces of Prince Awaloff in the Baltic. The English and French
navies bombarded his anti-Communist army resulting in decisive
defeat outside of Riga, Latvia. Much later, the intervention
of British and Americans on the side of the Soviet Union during
WWII culminated in the great victory for international Communism
that was the Second World War. The Allies rounded up and incarcerated
free White Russians for deportation to Stalin’s death
camps in Operation Keelhaul, a result of an agreement made between
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Forced
repatriation by the Allies resulted in the deaths of thousands,
and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of White Russians by firing
squads or deportation to the Gulag archipelago labor camps.
This consistent action during the 20th century in favor of the
Communists with the obvious goal of creating high mortality
among anti-communists was conclusive proof to the SOSJ that
the western governments were controlled by Internationalists
and Communists. Because of this, the SOSJ continued to attract
patriotic and nationalistic western military men to its membership,
and to operate as an anti-Communist intelligence agency. Admiral
Barry Domville, former head of British Naval Intelligence, was
a long serving member of the SOSJ. It appeared that General
Douglas MacArthur’s entire senior staff was in the Order.
The Order became involved in Operation Paperclip and the famous
“Rat Lines” which spirited Nazi anti-Communists
out of Europe.
XIX. THE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND
KNIGHTS OF THE SOSJ DEFEND AGAINST COMMUNISM
The Order was engaged worldwide in anti-Communist
activities. Former SS Major General Boris Holmston-Smyslovsky,
alias Colonel von Reganau, and U.S. Marine Lieutenant General
Pedro Del Valle spurred renewed SOSJ activity in opposition
to the Communists in Europe after 1948. Holmston-Smyslovsky
was an old associate of Prince Awaloff. These men were involved
with the Gladio program which prompted the founding of the U.S.
Army Special Forces. The secret army of Czar Kirill I formed
a nucleus for Gladio “stay behind” operations which
were designed to wage perpetual war on the Communists. As successor
to SOSJ Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations operations, Allen W.
Dulles, Colonel William J. Donovan, Gen. Reinhard Gehlen and
Lt. General Pedro Del Valle initiated NATO’s Operation
Gladio during the era of the founding of the U. S. Central Intelligence
Agency and German BND. The U. S. Counter-Intelligence Corps,
the Gehlen Organization and the Knights of Malta started the
Volunteer Freedom Corps otherwise known as Operation Gladio.
Ten thousand men were descendants of the secret army of Czar
Kirill I and the fifty garrisons of East European Freikorps
mentioned by Cherep Spiridovich in the 1920’s and by Phillip
Corso, OSJ in the 1950’s. Even in the United States, some
knights started anti-Communist domestic militias and supported
conservative publications to increase public awareness of the
agenda of International Socialism.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1948 |
Prince GM Gen. Pavel Awaloff |
|
|
C. Christensen Grand Prior of Denmark |
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
XX. THE POST-WAR GERMAN ORDER OF ST. JOHN ABANDONS
THE SOSJ
TO IMPROVE ITS IMAGE
A succession of German Lieutenant Grand Masters
during the 1950’s is evidence of the continued close ties
Grand Master Prince Awaloff had to the German Order of St. John.
Scipio Baron von Engelhardt-Schnellenstein from the Palatinate
contacted Grand Chancellor Pichel during the period 1949 to
1951 with the offer to help reinvigorate the SOSJ. He was an
old associate of Prince Awaloff from the Baltic Brotherhood
and a veteran of the Welt Dienst and Fichte Bund propaganda
services. He served as Lt. Grand Master from 1954 to 1955. Grand
Master Prince Awaloff was brought to the United States from
Austria by Operation Paperclip in 1952. His stepson, a former
German SS officer with the Russian Volunteer Army of Major General
Holmston-Smyslovsky, had been captured by the Communists while
working behind the lines for the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps
in 1949. Grand Master Prince Awaloff died September 30, 1954
in the United States and is reportedly buried at Arlington National
Cemetery. Many of the remaining members of Awaloff’s Grand
Priory of Columbia were taken onto the roles of the American
Grand Priory in 1955. The Grand Priory of Columbia consisted
of most of those Knights of European descent on the roles of
the Russian National Society at 5 Columbia Circle in New York
City under the leadership of Brasol and Sakharov. Their contribution
to the defense of the West and to war relief led members of
the SOSJ to believe that they would be recognized as equal partners
among the national orders of Malta. Therefore, the election
of a new Grand Master to replace Prince Awaloff was postponed.
Frederick H. Count von Zeppelin served from 1956 to 1960 as
Lt. Grand Master. Franklin Allen West of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
became President of the Sovereign Council in 1956. Pichel wrote
an inaccurate history of the SOSJ in 1958 designed to conceal
the fascist ties of the SOSJ but complementary to the SMOM,
and the English and German orders of St. John. The hope of acceptance
of the SOSJ by these orders would again prove to be futile.
The Prussian Prince Wilhelm Karl, the head of the German Order
of St. John, visited Grand Chancellor Pichel in Pennsylvania
in 1961 after the death of Grand Duke Cyril’s eldest daughter.
She was the wife of the Hohenzollern Pretender to the throne
of Germany, the Prussian Prince Louis Ferdinand. Prince Louis
Ferdinand had been a life-long intimate, and employee, of Henry
Ford and the Ford family. Wilhelm Karl ended Johanniter Orden
association with the SOSJ when he learned that there were no
charitable activities undertaken by the SOSJ and that most members
appeared to be connected to military and government Intelligence.
Scipio Baron von Engelhardt-Schnellenstein and F. H. Count von
Zeppelin were forced to resign from the SOSJ at the risk of
their membership in the German Order.
Princess Ileana of Romania, Queen Maries’ daughter, had
obtained land in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania which was near Franklin
West in Pittsburgh. There, similar to her aunt Grand Duchess
Elizabeth, she started the first community for Orthodox religious
sisters in the United States and became the Mother Superior.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1954 |
|
LGM Baron von Engelhardt-Schnellenstein |
|
|
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
1956 |
|
LGM Graf von Zeppelin |
F. A. West |
|
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
A Frenchman, Paul Granier de Cassagnac, was
recruited for the Lieutenancy in 1960. Embarrassed when the
National Socialist ties to the Order became known by the newer
members in 1962, and believing that the presence of King Peter
II of Yugoslavia as a new member would improve the Order’s
social standing, Cassagnac called for the members to elect him
Grand Master. Crolian Edelen was present at the vote count and
verified that Cassagnac failed in his attempt to gain the Order’s
highest office. Nonetheless, ignoring the failed election, Cassagnac
created a splinter order.
King Peter II was the son of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia
and had joined the SOSJ in 1961. He followed Cassagnac into
schism but soon disagreed with him and started his own Order
of St. John under his Yugoslavian royal title. Prince Serge
Troubetzkoy had also left the original Order and became King
Peter’s Lieutenant Grand Master. When the King claimed
that their new order was not the original trunk of the old order,
Troubetzkoy took his Russian dominated organization and operated
independently. The Order retains letters from Prince Troubetzkoy
in which he discusses the nature of these different orders.
In the meantime, Pichel and his Supreme Council asked Admiral
Felix Count von Luckner, a famed German naval officer and associate
of Prince Awaloff, to assume the position of Lieutenant Grand
Master that had been vacated by Cassagnac. LGM Admiral Count
von Luckner became terminally ill and resigned in 1966. He died
in 1967. Pichel nominated Crolian Edelen who was elected the
75th Grand Master in 1966.
Edelen was a German-American and former Pacific
WWII Army intelligence officer and was an avid amateur genealogist.
He attempted to unravel the 20th century history of the SOSJ,
but succeeded only in creating more controversy about its origins
which he was unable to trace before 1933. Unfortunately, though
necessary at the time, the attempt to conceal former alliances
to fascist governments prior to and during WWII created chronic
problems for the American Grand Priory. The Order was protecting
its members and their families. The reluctance to offer proof
of lineage through Czar Kirill I fueled the critics of the SOSJ.
An example of the Order's geo-political
activities in 1964.
The SOSJ membership roles during this time included Generals
Lemuel Shepherd, Pedro Del Valle, George Stratemeyer, Charles
Willoughby, Ralph Smith, Terry Morrison, Bonner Fellers, Admirals
Charles Cooke, RL Porter, Herbert Howard, Richard Black, Francis
Spellman and Prince Michel Sturdza of Romania, Congressman Larry
MacDonald and Senator John Ashcroft. Well known leaders of the
American intelligence community accepted various positions in
the SOSJ.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1960 |
|
LGM P Casssagnac |
F. A. West |
|
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
1962 |
|
LGM Count von Luckner |
|
Bishop B. Kurz |
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
1966 |
Prince GM Crolian Edelen |
|
|
Bishop B. Kurz |
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
XXI. THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA STAND AGAINST HUMANISTS
WITHIN THE CHURCH
After the conclusion of the Second Vatican
Council in 1969, the Order became one of the few institutions
to preserve the ancient Latin Rite liturgy. Catholic traditionalists
were attracted to the Order by its ecclesiastical independence
guaranteed in perpetuity by numerous popes. The humanist revolution
had entered the Catholic Church and the Order struggled to resume
its former role as a staunch defender of the Catholic Faith.
Unfortunately Grand Chancellor Pichel became
increasingly eccentric in his later years. He alienated the
members but retained legal control of the SOSJ by his use of
proxy votes. Grand Master Edelen resigned in 1976. The 76th
Grand Master elected was Prince Roberto Paterno from Sicily,
Hereditary Grand Prior of the ancient Langue of Aragon. Elected
in 1976, he served until 1983. Grand Chancellor Pichel, who
was 87 years old, was coerced into resigning in 1977 and his
duties were divided between Grand Prior Capell of America and
Grand Prior Wicklund of Europe. Pichel soon was able to become
active again and to work with Grand Prior Capell but both of
them were dead by 1982.
Bishop Blaise Kurz and Fr. Gommar
De Pauw, both were members of the Order for a period of
time. They defended the existence of the Latin Mass from
the Modernists and Globalists who operate from inside
of the Church and work towards a new, one world religion. |
Fr. James Wathen, OSJ, Chief Chaplain
of the Order for many years. He also defended the sanctity
of the Latin Mass against the Globalists who are removing
Christ's presence from the world. |
American Grand Prior Capell unexpectedly died
in October, 1980 and when Pichel died in May, 1982 several knights
took control of a weakened SOSJ corporation that he had founded
in 1956. The loss from old age of many influential members of
the SOSJ gave impetus for a few knights to attempt to seize
control of the Order to make legal claim on the legendary lost
Romanoff treasure that reportedly lay on the floor of the Sea
of Japan. The leader of this movement had been expelled from
the Order in 1981, prior to the death of Pichel. Regardless,
they filed a claim against the Sovereign Council for patent
infringement. SOSJ Security General Nicholas Nazarenko was a
former Cossack German Waffen SS Intelligence Officer who had
been recruited after the war to work in Romania for the U.S.
Counter Intelligence Corps. Nazarenko denied the attempt to
take control of the Order to the knights who were shown to be
ineligible on several counts and his timely intervention helped
the Sovereign Council to form the Association of Family Commanders
and Hereditary Knights in 1983. A federal court case filed by
the splinter group in an effort to seize control of the Order
finally succeeded only in the legal grant to them of a trademarked
name from Pichel’s 1956 corporation. Dr. John Grady, MD
defended the SOSJ against the coup attempt and was elected in
a Chapter General in 1991 as the 77th Grand Master of the SOSJ.
Dr. Grady, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot, medical doctor,
politician and an early founder of the Right To Life movement,
helped to write a new constitution which was accepted by the
Order at the first Chapter General since the Fall of Malta.
Grand Master Dr. Grady then proceeded to rebuild the Order.
The 78th Prince Grand Master of the SOSJ, Barry Garland, was
elected in 2006 and assumed office in 2008 upon the retirement
of Dr. Grady. Grand Master Garland, a professional bodyguard
and critical care nurse, assumed leadership of the Order at
a time when leaders withing the Catholic Church have been weakened
by unrelenting campaigns of the social humanists and of those
who oppose Jesus Christ.
|
Prince
Grand Master |
Lt.
Grand Master |
President
of the Sovereign Council |
Grand
Prior |
Grand
Chancellor |
Protector |
1976 |
Prince GM Sir Roberto Paterno Col C LT
Pichel |
|
|
America: F. Capell
Europe: T. Wicklund |
Col. C.L.T. Pichel |
|
1983 |
|
LGM Prince S. Troubetzkoy |
Gen. B. von Stahl |
Fr. James Wathen Chief Chaplain |
Dr. Sir John Grady, MD |
|
1991 |
Prince GM Dr. Sir John Grady, MD |
LGM Prince S. Troubetzkoy |
|
|
|
|
2003 |
Prince GM Dr. Sir John Grady, MD |
LGM Barry Garland |
|
|
|
|
2008 |
Prince GM Sir Barry Garland |
GM Emeritus Dr. Sir John Grady |
|
Rev. Raymond V.
Dunn |
Brian J. Garland |
|
XXII. THE HISTORIC MISSION OF THE SOSJ
Since its inception ca. 1099, the SOSJ embraced the nursing
and military aspects of its Mission with such excellence and
zeal that even adherents of militant Islam were known to respect
the selflessness, professionalism and skill of the warrior monks.
But the diabolic obsessions of the social humanists that were
ushered in with the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the 18th
century have created an adversary more powerful than Islam.
The adversary is elusive and polymorphic and has often been
able to wreak its havoc from within the walls of the Church
and of the ancient and noble Order of the Knights of Malta.
Napoleon Bonaparte captured the Pope and his sovereign territory,
which composed much of present-day northern Italy, during the
era of upheaval started by the French Revolution. The SOSJ thereby
suffered the loss of the support of the Holy See at a time when
that august body was controlled by revolutionists and Freemasons.
Teachers within the Church itself became compromised by revolutionary
philosophies which affect useven to the present day. In 1798
the SOSJ therefore found itself forced to compromise its strict
Roman Catholic ideals and traditions. Rather than betray the
Religion, it sought protection from, and gave its renewed efforts
to, the Orthodox Russian czar who was the strongest proponent
of the Counter Revolution. The Orthodox Church, by the grace
of God, willingly gave its support to the ancient Catholic Order.
It is true that men with decidedly non-Catholic beliefs have
been accepted in the past as knights because it was thought
that their prominence in society would benefit the Order. The
leadership repeatedly erred when it failed to remember that
good works alone are not all that is necessary for salvation.
In similar fashion to the splintering that has been endured
by the Catholic Church these errors have led to the creation
of multiple splinter organizations claiming the SOSJ lineage.
Beside the genealogical lineage that has here been detailed
and documented one can identify the Order of St. John of Jerusalem
by its indelible marks that are jealously guarded and preserved
by the Knights of Justice. Just as one can look to the identifying
marks of the Catholic Church which point unerringly to the True
Church of Jesus Christ, we can also look for the marks of the
Order of St. John that have identified it throughout its thousand
year history. The Church is identified by being one, holy, Catholic
and Apostolic. The marks of the Order of St. John, which are
unique and distinguishing characteristics, are its identifiers
as recognized before the loss of Malta in 1798. The ancient
Order is a sovereign republic governed by noble Hospitaller
Knights.
As described in this abbreviated history of our chivalric brotherhood
since the loss of Malta, the SOSJ has continuously striven under
difficult circumstances to fulfill its historic mission as defender
of Christendom and as servant to the poor and infirm. Two hundred
years of militant service for Christendom have challenged the
Knights of Malta of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem
with engagement in both physical and spiritual combat. During
the last five decades, the Order has been among those few institutions
which have decried the deterioration caused by social humanist
intrusion into the highest circles of the Catholic Church. The
leadership of the SOSJ, recognizing the dangers of the Trojan
Horse amongst the walls of the Order and of the Church, has
instituted the appropriate counter measures.
The Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem is an independent
chivalric order whose full members are members of the Church.
The Knights of Justice are the protectors of the Order’s
sovereignty and traditions as handed down from antiquity in
unbroken fashion through Czar Kirill I and the Sovereign Council.
The full members of the Russian Langue of the Order are in communion
with the Church through the personal jurisdiction of the Grand
Prior of the Malankara Catholic Langue, a Bishop whose church
has a special vocation to unite Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
Though the Knights of St. John may not be able to be at the
sepulcher of Our Lord in Jerusalem, by the grace of God we will
continue to assist in the preservation of His eternal gifts
to us. The Russian Order of Malta continues as a chivalric,
hospitaller organization in the service of the Church. The Headquarters
of the Order is in Jupiter, Florida, U.S.A. The Convent of the
Order is located in Benton, Tennessee, U.S.A.
SOSJ TIMELINE FROM 1797
1798: The SOSJ moves its convent from Malta
to the home of its protector, Czar Paul I, in St. Petersburg,
Russia, and elects him the 72nd Grand Master. The Russian czars
become the perpetual protectors of the SOSJ.
1803: John Baptist di Tommasi is named the
72nd Prince Grand Master of the SOSJ. He was chosen by the Pope
from a list of candidates presented from the dispersed priories
of the Order. He was the candidate of the SOSJ in St. Petersburg.
1805: Upon the death of Grand Master di Tommasi,
the SOSJ in Russia, in order to remain independent of the intrigues
of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, continues under the President
of the Sovereign Council and the Czar Alexander I, Protector
of the Order.
1893: Russian Knights of Malta introduce American
civic leaders to the White Cross at the 1893 Chicago World’s
Fair.
1904: The American White Cross First Aid Society
is founded in Chicago, Illinois by civic leaders in association
with the U.S. Military, the Catholic Church and a member of
the English St. John’s Ambulance Association.
1899: The U.S. Army, civic leaders and the
Catholic Church attempt to gain a U.S. Title 36 Charter for
the American White Cross from the Congress of the United States
of America.
1908: The White Cross Hospital and Relief Association
is founded in New York City, New York. It was the combined effort
of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Knights of Malta joining with
a Protestant relief organization.
1912: The American Grand Priory of the Sovereign
Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta, including
the Catholic Grand Priory of Russia is given a Constitution
and a Grand Prior. Its founding is dated to 1908.
1913: Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich is
elected the 73rd Grand Master of the SOSJ.
1917: The SOSJ is forced from Russia by the
Bolshevik Revolution. The Polish White Cross is founded by the
Grand Priory of Russia in the United States a few days later.
1919: The Russian Grand Priory of the Sovereign
Order of St. John of Jerusalem is re-established in Saltzvedel,
Germany by Knights of the Corps des Pages, Colonel Pavel Awaloff
and Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich.
1922: The OSJ Sovereign Council is reconstituted
in New York City by the authority of Grand Duke Cyril, Guardian
of the Imperial Throne of Russia. William Nelson Cromwell assumes
operational control of the SOSJ as President of the Sovereign
Council.
1928: Dowager Empress Dagmar Feodorovna dies
in Denmark, and her daughter Xenia, wife of Grand Master Grand
Duke Alexander Michaelovich and Patroness of the Corps des Pages,
sends the SOSJ relics to the ROCA Cathedral in Berlin.
1932: Grand Duchess Xenia authorizes the transfer
of the SOSJ relics from Berlin to Belgrade to the custody of
King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, Protector of the SOSJ.
1933: Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich
dies in France. General Prince Awaloff is made President of
the Russian National Liberation Movement in Germany.
1934: King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, Protector
of the SOSJ, is assassinated in France. Czar Kirill I becomes
Protector of the SOSJ. Prince Awaloff is elected the 74th Grand
Master of the SOSJ. The Sovereign Council and Prince Awaloff
found the Sovereign Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem
in Denmark. Colonel Charles L.T. Pichel becomes Grand Chancellor
of the SOSJ upon the death of J.G.B. Bulloch. Dr. Bryant becomes
President of the Sovereign Council.
1944: Robert Edmondson of Scranton, Pennsylvania
becomes President of the Sovereign Council upon the retirement
of Dr. Bryant.
1945: Grand Chancellor Colonel Charles L.T.
Pichel moves the SOSJ Convent from New York City to Shickshinny,
Pennsylvania.
1946: The SOSJ Grand Priory in Denmark is reconstituted
after the war by the Sovereign Council.
1951: Lt. Grand Master Baron Scipio von Engelhardt-Schnellenstein,
from Germany, assumes the leadership of the American Grand Priory.
1954: Prince Grand Master General Awaloff dies
and Grand Chancellor Pichel and Lt. Grand Master Scipio Baron
von Engelhardt- Schnellenstein assume the leadership of the
SOSJ.
1955: Lt. Grand Master Frederic Graf von Zeppelin
from Germany assumes the leadership of the SOSJ.
1956: Franklin A. West of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
becomes President of the Sovereign Council.
1960: Lt. Grand Master Colonel Paul de Cassagnac
of France assumes the leadership of the SOSJ.
1962: Lt. Grand Master Felix Count von Luckner
of Germany assumes the leadership of the SOSJ.
1966: Crolian Edelen of New Jersey is elected
the 75th Grand Master of the SOSJ.
1976: Don Roberto Paterno of Naples, Italy
is elected the 76th Grand Master of the SOSJ. He resigns in
1983.
1983: General Benjamin von Stahl assumes the
leadership of the SOSJ as President of the Sovereign Council
and moves the Convent of the SOSJ to Benton, Tennessee.
1991: Dr. John L. Grady, MD of Benton, Tennessee
is elected the 77th Grand Master of the SOSJ.
2006: Barry Garland of Florida is elected the
78th Grand Master of the SOSJ.
2008: Grand Master Barry Garland, RN assumes
office upon the retirement of Dr. John Grady.
2009: The Malankara Catholic Langue is created
and the Russian Langue is re-established. The Russian Langue
is in communion with the Catholic Church through the personal
jurisdiction of Bishop Joseph Mar Thomas whose church has a
special vocation to unite Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
SOSJ LEADERSHIP SINCE 1797
Prince Grand Master Lt Grand Master President of the Grand
Prior Protector
Sovereign Council
1797 Prince GM Ferdinand von Hompesch Pope Pius VI
1798 GM Czar Paul I LGM J Count de Litta Prince de Conde GM
Czar Paul I
1799 GM Czar Paul I LGM Field Marshall Prince de Conde GM Czar
Paul I Count Soltykoff
1801 LGM Field Marshall Undetermined Czar Alexander Czar Alexander
I Count Soltykoff
1803 GM John Baptist di Tommasi Undetermined Czar Alexander
Czar Alexander I
1805 Undetermined Czar Alexander Czar Alexander I
1825 Undetermined Senior G D Czar Nicholas I
1855 Undetermined Senior G D Czar Alexander II
1881 Undetermined Senior G D Czar Alexander III
1894 Undetermined G D Vladimir Czar Nicholas II
1908 Undetermined G D Vladimir Czar Nicholas II
Russian Grand Priory
1. Grand Priory of Russia MG Cherep Spiridovich a. White Cross
Hospital and Relief Assn. G H Bruce
1912 Undetermined Czar Nicholas II
Russian Grand Priory G D Cyril
American Grand Priory W S Bryant W N Cromwell
1. Grand Priory of Russia MG Cherep Spiridovich a. White Cross
Hospital and Relief Assn. G H Bruce
1913 G M Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich Undetermined Czar
Nicholas II
Russian Grand Priory G D Cyril
American Grand Priory W S Bryant W N Cromwell
1. Grand Priory of Russia MG Cherep Spiridovich a. White Cross
Hospital and Relief Assn. W W Butcher
1919 Russian Sovereign Imperial Order of St. John of Jerusalem
Grand Duke Cyril Cmdr in Chief Prince Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt
1922 G M Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich W N Cromwell G D
Alexander King Alexander I
American Grand Priory LGM John J Sheridan J P West
1. Grand Priory of Russia MG Cherep Spiridovich
a. White Cross Hospital and Relief Assn. W W Butcher
b. Polish White Cross Count J Potocki
Prince Grand Master Lt Grand Master President of the Grand Prior
Protector
Sovereign Council
1934 Prince GM Gen Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt Dr W S Bryant Fr
Chodkiewicz Czar Kirill I
American Grand Priory E Wilson
Grand Priory of Denmark
1938 Prince GM Gen Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt Dr W S Bryant Fr
Chodkiewicz
American Grand Priory Paul de Torres
Grand Priory of Denmark
1944 Prince GM Gen Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt Robert Edmondson
American Grand Priory C L T Pichel, G Chancellor
Grand Priory of Denmark
1948 Prince GM Gen Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt C L T Pichel, G Chancellor
American Grand Priory
Grand Priory of Denmark C Christensen
1951 Prince GM Gen Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt C L T Pichel, G Chancellor
American Grand Priory LGM Baron von
Engelhardt-Scnhellenstein Grand Priory of Denmark C Christensen
1954 C L T Pichel, G Chancellor Engelhardt-Scnhellenstein
1955 LGM Baron von C L T Pichel, G Chancellor Engelhardt Scnellenstein
1956 LGM Graf von F A West
Zeppelin
1960 LGM P Cassagnac F A West
1962 LGM Count von Luckner Bishop B Kurz
1966 Prince GM Sir Crolian Edelen Bishop B Kurz
Rev Shelley
1976 Prince GM Sir Roberto Paterno
American Grand Priory F Capell
European Grand Priory T Wicklund 1983 Gen B von Stahl
1991 Prince GM Dr Sir John Grady LGM Prince
Troubetzkoy
2003 Prince GM Dr Sir John Grady LGM B Garland A Chadwick
2008 Prince GM Sir Barry Garland GM Emeritus Dr Sir J Grady,
MD K Weger
SOVEREIGN ORDER OF SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM
1798: 71st Grand Master Czar Paul I
1801: LGM Field Marshall Count Soltikoff
1803: 72nd Prince Grand Master John Baptist di Tommasi
1805: Czar Alexander I, Protector of the SOSJ
1825: Czar Nicholas I, Protector of the SOSJ
1855: Czar Alexander II, Protector of the SOSJ
1881: Czar Alexander III, Protector of the SOSJ
1894: Czar Nicholas II, Protector of the SOSJ
1913: 73rd Grand Master Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich
1922: William Nelson Cromwell, President of the Sovereign Council
1934: 74th Prince Grand Master General Pavel Awaloff-Bermondt
1954: LGM Scipio Baron von Engelhardt-Schnellenstein
1956: LGM F. Graf von Zeppelin
1960: LGM Colonel Paul Cassagnac
1962: LGM Admiral Felix Count von Luckner
1966: 75th Prince Grand Master Crolian Edelen
1976: 76th Prince Grand Master Don Roberto Paterno
1983: General Benjamin von Stahl, President of the Sovereign
Council
1991: 77th Prince Grand Master Dr. John Grady, MD
2008: 78th Prince Grand Master Barry Garland, RN
FOOT NOTES
[1] From: Melita Historica: A Scientific Review of Maltese
History (1968): Correspondence relative to the Painting of the
"Madonna of Philermos"
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