 |
The Russian Grand Priory On the 1st June 1798 a Treaty1 had been agreed between the Order under Grandmaster Hompesch in Malta and Emperor Paul I of Russia, then Protector of the Order, to create a new establishment consisting of 84 Commanderies for the Nobility of the Greek Religion. The report2 on the agreement submitted to the Sacred Council propounds the arguments in favour of sanctioning a non-Catholic Grand Priory within a Roman Catholic Order. On June 12, Napoleon invaded Malta and expelled the Order before the treaty could be ratified. Rendered homeless after 263 years in Malta, most of the knights made their way to St Petersburg where they were made welcome by their Protector, the Emperor and in September 1798, the Order now based in St Petersburg voted to depose Hompesch and on the 27th October proceeded to elect Emperor Paul I as their Grandmaster ,which he accepted on the 13th November. Controversy3 within the Order about the election of Paul I as Grandmaster of the Order whilst Hompesch was still Grandmaster was resolved on 6th July 1799 when Hompesch abdicated under pressure from the Austrian Emperor who was an ally of Russia, leaving Paul I undisputed Grandmaster albeit without Papal approval. Now Grandmaster, Paul I resurrected a modified plan of creating Commanderies based on the Treaty previously reached between the Order under Hompesch and Paul I. The Proclamation of the Emperor inaugurating the Commanderies retained the same ambiguous language of a "new establishment" to describe the Commanderies collectively. The new foundation was instituted by "imperial authority"4 and Article XXVI of the proclamation stated Lastly, we confirm in the most solemn manner, in our name and in that of our successors for ever, all and each of the articles of the present foundation; the said articles to have their full effect, and to be inviolably executed. This was an unequivocal creation of a Russian Order by Russian Imperial authority. At no point or in any circumstance was this Imperial Proclamation ever abrogated by any successive Russian Emperor. It differed from the original Treaty only in the following modifications; a) "Nobility of Greek Religion" is simplified to "Nobility" thereby extending membership to heterodox as well as Orthodox Christians. b) "Order of Malta" was amended to "Order of St John". c) A Lieutenant Grand Master was to preside at the Assemblies of the new foundation.5 The Proclamation of 1798, in the same way as the Convention of 1797, establishing the Catholic Priory, provided for hereditary (or family) Commanderies, in keeping with the principle of hereditary succession of titles of nobility and royalty. 6 Prince Cyril Toumanoff, the Historical Counsellor to the Papal Order quite rightly recognises that the term 'Orthodox Priory' is not used in connection with the foundation of Paul's institution for Russian Nobles.8 However he misses the significance of the term. In contrast to the 10 Commanderies of the Catholic Grand Priory, the new establishment has 98 Commanderies, almost ten fold the size. Paul as Emperor, has grafted onto the original Order, of which he was then the Grandmaster, a new Russian Order, akin to the Bailiwick of Brandenburg with its own Herrenmeister; an Order within an Order, and large enough to include all those who were eligible. Some confirmation is given to this thesis, by virtue of the fact that the assemblies of the new institution were to be presided by a Lieutenant Grand Master to represent the Grandmaster. Historians often refer to the "new establishment" as the "Orthodox Grand Priory". The designation 'Orthodox' is found nowhere in the original documents creating the new institution and probably owes itself to the original Treaty of June 1st 1798 which created a "Greek" establishment. The Proclamation of 29th November 1798 in contrast provides for the Russian Nobles without any distinction of ecclesiastical denomination, in effect creating an ecumenical Priory. The institution is referred to as a Grand Priory in a Declaration by Paul's son and successor, Alexander I when appointing Soltikoff to continue his office as Lieutenant Grand Master. Alexander uses the term "our two Grand Russian and Catholic Priories".9 This seems to have reflected an earlier status of the institution under Paul I. There is some suggestion in a number of authors that Alexander was the first Prior of the Russian Grand Priory. Paul presented the Order with the Worontzoff Palace which had its name changed to 'Palais de Malte' with a later designation of 'de St Jean'. Two Chapels were added to the Palace, one for the Catholic Priory and the other for the Russian Institution.10 It may be argued that the Russian Priories and, to some extent, the Order had been subsumed into a monarchy. This however may already have been the case during the last phase of Order in Malta, where the Grandmagistry had all but tranmogrified into a monarchy, even to the extent of adopting a royal crown as a symbol of power. Summary and subsequent development 1. Emperor Paul I declared Grandmaster of the Order in 1798 creating a schism resolved when in 1799 Hompesch abdicated in favour of Paul I. 2. Paul creates a "new institution" of 98 Commanderies for Russian Nobles, becoming the largest structure in the Order. It is later expanded by a further 20 Commanderies, with the addition of 21 Family Commanderies totalling 139 Commanderies, all producing incomes for both the incumbents and the Order. In 1799 this becomes the Russian Grand Priory. Not all Knights belonging to the Russian Grand Priory had Commanderies and relied upon any income from Commanderies. Five such Knights are listed in the Annals for 1799. 3. On July 21st (old style) 1799, Paul issues a decree (ukase) governing the family commanderies. This provides hereditary rights not only to the commanderies but also to the heirs of those commanderies. As Monarch and Grandmaster, Paul had ensured that the new establishment formed part of Russian rather than Roman Catholic tradition. 4. After Paul's murder Alexander I instructed the Lieutenant Grandmaster to organise the election of a new Grandmaster - as a consequence deferring for one time only (but which later became the pattern) the choice to the Pope. 5. By 1810 the Napoleonic Wars were beginning to affect the Russian Empire culminating in the 1812 campaigns. The state coffers needed replenishing in preparation for war. As a result, Alexander I confiscated the property and income from the commanderies, and prohibited any payments to the Order's Roman Catholic headquarters, thus creating a real fiscal and legal separation. However the ukase makes its clear that the Order in Russia continued. The ukase of 1811 enacted that the Commanders had the right to take over the family commanderies properties against either a one-off payment or, under the 1799 rules, by instalments. Moreover the income derived by the State as a result of this process was to be used to defer the expenses of the domestic Order. This is a far cry from the suppression theory advanced in some quarters. 6. In 1817 a ministerial decision was issued whereby a Russian Army Officer and his brothers were not allowed to wear the Decoration awarded by the Roman Catholic Order. This decision states that the awarding Priory "was not in existence any longer in Russia". This ukase was deliberately misinterpreted by Panov and Zamyslovsky in a book called A Brief Account of the Russian Orders and their Statutes published in St Petersburg in 1891 and has been the source of classic misinformation ever since. The book provided a reworking of the original words of 1817 to read "After the death of the Commanders of the Order of St John, their heirs will not have the right to be Commanders of the Order and will not be allowed to wear the badges and decorations of the Order any longer because the latter does not exist any more in the Russian Empire" (pages 28-33). This is a gross misreading of the original texts, intruding words, which did not exist in the originals and ignoring other evidence available to a thorough author. This malicious misinterpretation has since been accepted uncritically by authors unsympathetic with the Russian tradition and which would have been easily corrected by a cursory glance at the original ukases. The awards in question were in fact issued by the Roman Catholic Order, using the rules of its own Russian Priory. It seems logical to assume therefore that the imperial intention behind the discouragement of the awards was simply to prevent further sums of money going to the Roman Catholic headquarters. 7. The 1817 Decision will be placed into better perspective if it is compared with other records in existence. These attest to permissions by the emperors dating 1867, 1889, 1912 to allow Orthodox Christians who were not members of the Roman Catholic Order, to wear the Decoration. There will be others. An examination of contemporary Russian portraits will also reveal how many nobles wore the Order's decoration after the alleged prohibition of 1817. 8. The Court Almanacs list Russian members right up to 1914, with the 1914 listing specifically using the term "Hereditary Commander". 9. In 1907, Grand Duke Nicolas Mikhailovitch published a book on Russian Portraits in which he includes a biography of Prince Tufiakine with information derived from State Documents. He quotes "Prince Tufiakine emigrated abroad, where he passed the rest of his life. In 1841, he was stripped of his functions of Actual Chamberlain, and of his dignities of Master of the Court and of Commander of the Order of Malta. He spent his last years in Paris, where he died on 19 February 1845." He could not have been a member of the Roman Catholic Order, as the Russian Sate could not strip him of a dignity belonging to another entity. On the other hand if the Order had been suppressed in 1810/1811/1817, there would have been no dignity for the Russian State to strip. The conclusion inevitably points to the fact that State continued to be responsible for the Russian Order in 1841. Biographies on a number of the other original Family Commanders are also included in the work of Nicolas Mikhailovitch. 10. We know that the Orthodox Church was involved in the Order. The Metropolitan Bishops for St. Petersburg were members of the Russian Grand Priory. Other clergy were members. Feasts of the Order were celebrated within Orthodoxy, and were found in the official Service books up to the Revolution in 1917. 11. In 1928, 12 Russian exiles, hereditary commanders (every one who could at that time be traced, except a thirteenth who then joined in 1929) met in Paris to proclaim the continuation of the Russian Grand Priory. Amongst them was the member listed in the Court Almanac of 1914. 12. After contacting Grand Duke Cyril, the heir-Presumptive to the Russian Throne, a Danish group was referred to his brother Grand Duke Andrew who was responsible for the Russian Grand Priory. From this a Danish Priory was created in 1939. 13. If the issue of the survival of the Russian tradition were to be brought before the Courts, expert witnesses would necessarily be summoned to give their learned opinion. Whilst there is no shortage of non-Russians with little or no experience of Russian tradiution ready to pronounce on the survival of the Russian tradition or, as the case may be, its suppression, there was an outstanding Russian-born expert witness with impeccable credentials. Baron Michael de Taube was Professor of Law at St Petersburg University before the Revolution, a member of the Council of the Empire, a Russian Senator and first advisor to the Foreign Office under Emperor Nicholas II. In 1929 he became legal advisor to the Paris group of Hereditary Commanders. His legal opinion has been recorded in his book (in French) Emperor Paul I and his Russian Grand Priory, published in Paris in 1955 in which he attests to the legal continuity of the Russian Grand Priory. A deeper and more detailed appraisal of the Russian Grand Priory can be accessed on A Short History of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem by Dr MJ Foster
For details of the Grandmasters who ruled the Order, go to Grandmasters
Notes 1. National Library Malta, Arch. 2196 pp. 87-105. 2. National Library, Malta. Arch 2196. 1798. pp. 77-85 3. A precedent had been established in 1319 when Foulques de Villaret, who had become dictatorial and morally corrupt, was deposed. 4. Boisgelin, Volume 3, Book 3, Appendix No XIX: Prologue of the Proclamation 5. Boisgelin, Volume 3, Book 3, Article XXV. 6. The precedent for hereditary Commanders had already been established within the Order, before any involvement by Paul I. Two examples are the Priory of Bohemia and the Priory of Poland prior to its absorption into the Russian Priory. One early precedent is that of Grand Master Jean de Lascaris-Castellar (1636-1657) granting a hereditary knighthood to the Vicomte d'Arpajon for assisting in checking a Turkish attack on Malta.7 7. The case that Hereditary Knighthoods existed within the Order has been well made by Smith/Storace, Chapter V Role of Hereditary Knights pages 69-82. 8. Toumanoff, p. 29. 9. Boisgelin, Book III, Appendix XX, page 292. 10. Smith/Storace, page 70. Sources: Boisgelin, Louis de. Ancient and Modern Malta, and the History of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, 3 Volumes bound together. G & J Robinson, London 1804. Foster, Michael John: A Short History of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Part Two. The Order of St John of Jerusalem since 1798 National Library Malta, Arch. 2196 Smith, Harrison, and Storace, Joseph E, Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Second Edition, Akker Print, Delft, The Netherlands 1977. Toumanoff, Fra Cyrille. L'Ordre de Malte et l'Empire de Russie, Nouvelle Edition, Palazzo, Malta, 68 Via Condotti, Rome 1979,
|
|
