The Order of the Knights of Malta

The Order of the Knights of Malta (or simply the Order of Malta) is the third order conferred in a Commandery. Its story is that of the Hospitaller knights, the Order of St. John, whose centuries of care for pilgrims and the sick, and whose defense of Christendom’s sea-roads, carried their brotherhood from Jerusalem to Acre, to Rhodes, and finally to Malta, from which they take the name they still bear.

History

The historical Knights Hospitaller were founded in Jerusalem in the eleventh century around a hospital for pilgrims, and their documented history runs for seven hundred years: military defense of the crusading states, the long seafaring sovereignty of Rhodes and then Malta, and survival beyond the loss of that island to Napoleon in 1798. When the Knights Templar were suppressed in the early fourteenth century, papal action transferred much of their property to the Hospitallers, an historical entanglement that makes the Malta order a natural companion to the Templar story.

The Masonic Order of Malta is a commemoration of that heritage of service, not a continuation of the historical order, and it is altogether distinct from the modern sovereign order of the same name. Within the American York Rite it took its place in the nineteenth century as the second principal order of the Commandery series, conferred after the Passing Order of St. Paul and before the Order of the Temple.

Its lessons center on Christian service: hospitality, mercy, and the defense of the faith, drawing on the witness of Paul and the example of the Hospitallers.

In the York Rite

The Order of Malta is conferred in the Commandery, leading to the Order of the Temple. The full series is indexed on the degree histories page.