SEQ CHAPTER

THE ORDER OF MALTA AND POLAND

1. The full name of the Order of Malta is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. That title records the progressive history of the Order of Malta. Its original purpose was to provide a hospital for pilgrims to the Holy Land and in those early days it was known as the Hospitaller Order of St John and after the capture of Jerusalem, the Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem.

2. As the Holy Land became the scene of fighting between Crusaders and the Saracens, it became necessary for the members of the Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem to recruit knights and to take up arms in defence of the sick and wounded, pilgrims to the Holy Land and the Holy Land itself. Thus it became necessary to refer to the Order as the Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem. As such the Order engaged in many centuries of a fighting retreat. When Christian forces were expelled from the Holy Land, the Order of Malta took up residence on the island of Rhodes, occupying it between 1310 and 1523. Under siege from the Saracens, the Order left Rhodes, capitulating but leaving with full military honours. The Order then established itself on Malta and was to occupy the Island of Malta between 1530 and 1798 when eventually expelled by Napoleon. The Order was recognised as a Sovereign State in its own right and by the time of the great siege of Malta (18 May - 8 September 1565) was known by its modern title as The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.

3. From Malta, the Order of Malta harassed the Ottoman Turks by sea and to eliminate this nuisance, the Ottoman Turks laid siege to Malta in 1565. The fighting was intense and unremitting and fought with great courage on both sides. On 8 September 1565 watchmen on the battlements saw the besieging force withdraw to its ships. This was the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady. The Order of Malta has ever since paid special reverence to Our Lady under the title of Our Lady of Philerme. Following the lifting of the great siege, the Order of Malta was not idle and its naval forces participated in the great naval victory of Lepanto in 1571 which finally destroyed the Ottoman Turks as a naval force and ended the sea-borne risk to Europe from Muslim invaders.

4. The Order of Malta remained on Malta until expelled by Napoleon in 1798. In the confusion, a group of knights came under the protection of Paul 1, Emperor of Russia and then of his successor, Alexander 1 but by 1803 the Order resumed ordinary government with full continuity with the traditions of the Order.

5. In the modern world the Order of Malta provides humanitarian aid in 110 countries through 40 relief services engaging 80,000 permanent volunteers providing hospitals, ambulance services, homes for the old and disabled, emergency aid in natural disasters and war, and palliative care for the dying.

6. The distinctive spirituality of the Order of Malta, which is an exempt religious congregation not under the control of local Bishops, is to serve what the Order refers to “Our Lords the

Sick”. The dual motto of the Order is “Obsequium pauperum” and “Tuitio Fidei” : the service of the poor and sick and the defence of the Catholic faith.

7. There are many similarities between the history of the Order of Malta and the experience of the Polish people. The Order of Malta was founded in 1099 but Poland came into existence in 966.

8. A siege, successfully resisted, is part of the collective consciousness of Poles : in November/December 1655 the Swedish siege of Jazna Góra was resisted. Poles believe that the successful defence of Jazna Góra was due to Our Lady who was named Queen of Poland in the following year.

9. Again like the Order of Malta the raising of the siege was followed by an outbreak of new activity. In 1683 Polish cavalry scattered the force besieging Vienna, ending the land borne risk to Christendom as, 100 years earlier, the Order of Malta had dispersed the naval forces of the Ottoman Turks. From 1795 until 11 November 1918, Poland faced apparent extinction in everything save faith, culture and love of country. Restored as a nation in the aftermath of the First World War Polish troops accomplished the “Miracle of the Vistula”, smashing the Red Army under Trotsky and ending what might have been a successful sweep to Paris itself. The Miracle of the Vistula is recognised as one of the decisive battles of the 20^th century.

10. As a result of the Yalta agreement between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, Poland was abandoned to control by the Soviets from 1945 and by 1948 communist control was established over Catholic Poland. It was in that year that Cardinal August Hland, founder of the Society of Christ and Primate of Poland, made the stirring prophecy :

11. When Cardinal Wysy½sky was imprisoned by the Communists and threatened with the fate of his Hungarian counterpart Cardinal Mindzenty, the Polish Church on 8 December 1954 (the Centenary of the Proclamation of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December 1854) instituted the Jazna Góra Appeal, involving prayers for the Church, for Poland and for the Primate’s freedom before the Icon of the Black Madonna at Jazna Góra. Those participating, after hymns and prayers, recited or sang the pledge :

12. Thirty years later the turning point in the Cold War occurred in Poland with the martyrdom of Father Popie»uzko which brought hundreds of thousands of mourners into the streets of Warsaw in a demonstration which indicated the Soviet controllers of Poland had lost power over the Polish people. The security service agents who murdered the patriot priest were put on trial and punished.

13. In the same year the Polish Pope John Paul II wrote the encyclical “Dominum et Vivificantem”, a personal reflection on the role of the Holy Spirt in human history and in human suffering and which ends with a millenarian paean which looked forward 16 years to the start of a new millennium. The encyclical is noteworthy for the scant reference made to the Soviet Empire which for the author seemed already to belong to the past.

14. So it proved in 1989 when Poland, still in chains, dispersed the nuclear-armed Soviet Empire without the loss of a single American British or Australian soldier.

15. It became clear in the last months of 1989 that something at a deeper level had changed in human affairs : it was as if a presence which might be called “The Lie” had lost power and the works of its creation crumbled into dust : images of Politburo members with trembling hands, border guards assisting refugees across the border and finally the destruction of the Berlin Wall conveyed even to secular observers that something extraordinary had occurred in human affairs.

16. If 1989 was for Poland, and also for the Catholic world, the lifting of another siege, this time on a global scale, we might now look to a renewed and revived commitment of the Catholic world to the challenges of our own time.

17. In many formerly Catholic countries, Catholicism has long ceased to be a way of life and has become for many a matter of sentimental adhesion which is no match for secularising tendencies within or outside the Church.

18. The world is seeing a struggle for the mind of Islam where religion is certainly a way of life. The outcome is undecided. Islam honours Mary as the “Immaculate” and together with Judaism and Catholicism honours “One God”.

19. Next year 8 December 2004 will mark the 150 year anniversary of the formal proclamation of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Just as the Centenary of that event was marked in Poland by the Jazna Gora appeal of 8 December 1954, so it may be that the Sesquicentenary of this event may prove relevant to the struggles of our own time.