EQUESTRIAN ORDER OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE OF JERUSALEM
A Brief
History
The origins of the Equestrian Order of
the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem date back to the First
Crusade, when its leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, liberated
Jerusalem. As part of his operations to organise the
religious, military and public bodies of the territories
newly freed from Muslim control, he founded the Order of
Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. According to accounts of the
Crusades, in 1103 the first King of Jerusalem, Baldwin I,
assumed the leadership of this canonical order, and reserved
the right for himself and his successors (as agents of the
Patriarch of Jerusalem) to appoint Knights to it, should the
Patriarch be absent or unable to do so.
The Order’s members included not only
the Regular Canons (Fratres) but also the Secular Canons
(Confratres) and the Sergentes. The latter were armed
knights chosen from the crusader troops for their qualities
of valour and dedication; they vowed to obey Augustinian
Rule of poverty and obedience and undertook specifically,
under the command of the King of Jerusalem, to defend the
Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Places.
Very soon after the First Crusade the
troops – including the Knights of the Order of Canons of the
Holy Sepulchre – began to return to their homelands. This
led to the creation of priories all over Europe, which were
part of the Order as they came under the jurisdiction of the
noble knights or prelates who had been invested on the Holy
Sepulchre itself and who, although they were no longer in
the direct service of the King of Jerusalem, continued to
belong to the Order of Canons.
The Order first began to fail as a
cohesive military body of knights after Saladin regained
Jerusalem in 1182, and completely ceased to exist in that
format after the defeat of Acre in 1291. The passing of the
Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem left the Order without a
leader, though it continued to survive in the European
priories thanks to the protection of sovereigns, princes,
bishops and the Holy See. The priories kept alive the ideals
of the Crusader Knights: propagation of the Faith, defence
of the weak, charity towards other human beings. With the
exception of events in Spain, it was only rarely that the
Knights of the Holy Sepulchre ever took part again in
military action to defend Christianity.
In the 14th century, the Holy See made
an extremely high payment to the Egyptian Sultan so that he
would grant the right to protect the Christian Sanctuaries
to the Franciscan Friars Minor. Throughout the whole period
of the Latin Patriarchate’s suppression, the right to create
new Knights was the prerogative of the representative of the
highest Catholic authority in the Holy Land: the Custos.
In 1847 the Patriarchate was restored
and Pope Pius IX modernised the Order, issuing a new
Constitution which placed it under the direct protection of
the Holy See and conferred its government to the Latin
Patriarch. The Order’s fundamental role was also defined: to
uphold the works of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem,
whilst preserving the spiritual duty of propagating the
Faith.
In 1949, Pius XII decreed that the
Grand Master of the Order should be a Cardinal of the Holy
Roman Church and assigned the position of Grand Prior to the
Patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1962 Pope John XXIII and, in
1967, Pope Paul VI reorganised and revitalised the Order by
adding more specific regulations to the Constitution with
the intention of making the Order’s activities more
co-ordinated and more effective.
In February 1996, the Supreme Pontiff
John Paul II enhanced the Order’s status. Today it is a
Public Association of faithful with a legal canonical and
public personality, constituted by the Holy See under Canon
Law 312, paragraph 1:1.
Over and above its historic
connotations and its eventful progress in times gone by, the
valuable and interesting aspects of the Order today lie in
the role assigned to it, which it pursues within the sphere
of the Catholic Church and through its administrative
structure and its local organisations in various
communities.
The Order today
a) Purposes
The Order’s aims are:
· To strengthen in its members the
practice of Christian life, in absolute fidelity to the
Supreme Pontiff and according to the teachings of the
Church, observing as its foundation the principles of
charity which make the Order a fundamental means of
assistance to the Holy Land;
· To sustain and aid the charitable,
cultural and social works and institutions of the Catholic
Church in the Holy Land, particularly those of and in the
Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, with which the Order
maintains traditional ties;
· To support the preservation and
propagation of the Faith in those lands, and promote
interest in this work not only among Catholics scattered
throughout the world, who are united in charity by the
symbol of the Order, but also among all other Christians;
· To uphold the rights of the Catholic
Church in the Holy Land.
The Equestrian Order of the Holy
Sepulchre of Jerusalem is the only lay institution of the
Vatican State charged with the task of providing for the
needs of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and of all the
activities and initiatives to support the Christian presence
in the Holy Land. The contributions made by its members are
therefore the Patriarchal institutions’ main source of
funding.
b) Structure of the Order
The Order has a definite hierarchy. At
the top is the Cardinal Grand Master who is appointed
directly by the Holy Father, to lead and govern the Order.
The Grand Master is assisted by a consultative body, the
Grand Magisterium, whose task is to identify and agree with
the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem the programmes and
action to be undertaken each year to provide for the
Christian institutions and communities in the Holy Land,
including the operating methods and timescales.
The Presidency of the Grand
Magisterium consists of the Governor General, the
Vice-Governors General and the Chancellor of the Order: this
is the Order’s executive “board”.
The hierarchy then divides into two
distinct parts: ecclesiastic and lay. The first, headed by
the Chancellor and the Ceremonial Officer, is responsible
for the Order’s spiritual development; the second, headed by
the Governor General, is responsible for managing the Order.
The task of the ecclesiastical
hierarchy is to define programmes and events to be put in
place to develop Members’ spirituality. The task of the lay
hierarchy is to carry out the Order’s social and charitable
activities on behalf of the Holy Land.
The Order is subdivided into
Lieutenancies, which in turn are divided into Sections. If
appropriate, the Sections may be further divided into
Delegations.
The Lieutenant, Section Heads (Presidi
in Italy and Sicily) and Delegates (responsible for the
Delegations) are accompanied by a parallel ecclesiastical
organisation consisting of Section and Delegation Priors.
All these roles are functional,
involving administrative responsibilities; they are not
honorary titles. The term of office is four years, which may
be renewed, subject always to the holder carrying out
his/her tasks correctly and effectively.
Suitable candidates for each post are
suggested by the immediate superior and submitted to those
in higher positions and the Grand Magisterium for final
approval.
The Order currently has 52
Lieutenancies: 24 in Europe, 15 in North America and Canada,
5 in Latin America and 6 in Australia and the Far East.
At present, the number of active
Members is around 23,000. These are the Members who actually
practise the life dedicated to service and charity which
they promised to uphold when they were admitted to the
Order.
c) Activities
As already indicated, the Order is
represented in almost every country in the world where there
is a large Catholic community and appropriate conditions for
activities that will allow it to achieve its objectives.
Together, and individually, each
Lieutenancy, Section and Delegation draws up a yearly
programme of meetings and events aimed at strengthening the
spiritual growth of the Members as well as events to raise
awareness of the Order’s role and activities in their
respective local communities.
The donations raised for the Holy Land
are administered by the Lieutenancies in accordance with the
administrative and fiscal legislation of their country of
operation and each Lieutenancy maintains relevant accounts
which are reported to the Grand Magisterium. These accounts
include the amount of donations, the beneficiaries and the
purpose for which they are allocated.
The work the Latin Patriarchate and
the other Catholic institutions carry out in favour of the
Christians in the Holy Land thanks to the Order’s support
can be summarised as follows:
The especially difficult times
following the second Intifada, (which put a stop to
work and economic activity in a very large part of the Holy
Land), caused many Christians to lose their jobs and
prompted the Latin Patriarchate, the Apostolic Nunciature
and the other Catholic institutions to engage in the
distribution of social and humanitarian aid in an operation
to provide the families most in need with direct financial
support. However, charity in the form of direct subsidies –
which some may view as “handouts” – is not part of the
Order’s normal operating methods. Handouts humiliate the
people obliged to accept them and have an adverse effect by
encouraging the beneficiaries to live on charity.
The Order’s policy has been, and still
is, to help the Christians in the Holy Land achieve
educational and professional standards that will enable them
to play an active part in the society of their own country,
at a level that will give them equality with people of other
faiths.
In the latter half of the 20th
century, middle-class Christian families leaving the Holy
Land to seek a secure future abroad became a real exodus.
Today, the number of Christians in different areas of the
Holy Land varies from 2% to 4% of the local population and
these are very largely craft workers, small tradesmen and
those working in the tourist industry that has developed
alongside pilgrimages. Such very small minorities can only
survive if their skills are high enough to earn them the
appreciation and esteem of the society in which they live;
and this can only be achieved thanks to better standards of
education and training.
Since the end of the 19th century, the
Order has financed the construction of 40 patriarchal
schools in Israel, Palestine and Jordan and it now has a
commitment to fund their running costs. Today around 19,000
pupils and students attend these schools, from nursery
classes through elementary, middle and upper school, as well
as in a number of technical schools. On average, the student
breakdown is 60% Christian (Catholics, Orthodox, etc.) and
40% Muslim.
The Order’s involvement with education
helps to deal with a very important problem in the region:
how to get people of different races and religions used to
living in peace and mutual respect. If these values are
encouraged from an early age they may be implanted in
children’s minds, otherwise there is no hope of doing it at
a later stage, for in adolescence young people are easy prey
to extremist ideologies.
The running costs of the Patriarchate
and its 68 parishes, the salaries of the 900 or so teachers
and other staff in the educational establishments, the costs
of the patriarchal seminary and the orphanages and clinics,
as well as those of the Patriarchate’s new enterprises and
other ongoing projects (including the construction of
housing for young Christian families) are enormous and rise
continually, putting a heavy burden on our Order. Such costs
can only be sustained thanks to the generosity of the active
Members of the Order.
d) What it means to be a Member of
the Order
Joining the Order means taking on a
commitment for life. The commitment to be a Witness to the
Faith, to lead an exemplary Christian life of continuing
charity in support of the Christian communities in the Holy
Land, to practise the true charitable commitment of a
Christian.
The purpose of joining the Order is to
serve the Catholic Church and to carry out acts of charity
to make the operations to maintain the Christian presence in
the Holy Land possible. The purpose of joining the Order is
not to become a member of a prestigious organisation in
order to boast of one’s status or acquire personal benefits
and advantages.
Usually, though not always, a
candidate is put forward by an existing Member of the Order.
The Delegate and Section Head with jurisdiction over the
area in question will assess the candidate at an initial
interview. If his/her attributes are generally considered to
meet requirements the candidate can begin a period of
training of no less than 12 months. If the candidate
completes this period successfully, he/she may apply for
admission to the Order through the local Lieutenancy.
Gran Magistero dell'O.E.S.S.G.
00120 - Città del Vaticano
Tel. 39 - 06 - 6828121
Fax 39 - 06 - 68802298
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