Australian Monarchist League -

An Address
on The Order of St John
by
Mrs Peter Grogan DSTJ
Chairman
St John Ambulance Australia (NSW)

It gives me great pleasure to be the guest speaker at your dinner to celebrate Her Majesty's 72nd Birthday. It is appropriate that when we are celebrating The Queen's
birthday we should do so in this lovely Queen's Club of which I am proud to be a member.

The Order of St John which I represent this evening, is one of a number of Orders of
Chivalry of which Her Majesty The Queen is the Sovereign Head. The earliest of these
dates from 1348 when King Edward 111 instituted The Most Noble Order of the Garter.
It celebrated its 650th Anniversary last Thursday 23 April, St George's Day, at Windsor
Castle and at a Dinner at the University of Sydney at which a number of you were
present.

The Order of St John was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1888, giving it
the status of a Royal Order of Chivalry with the name "The Most Venerable Order of the
Hospital of St John of Jerusalem" which I shall refer to this evening by its short title
"The Order of St John".

The original Order of St John, now called the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, is the
oldest and only surviving representative of the Orders of Chivalry instituted in the Holy
Land during the Crusades. Very early in the Christian era it was the custom for people
from Europe to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship at the Holy Sepulchre.

The journey was long and dangerous and the pilgrims suffered from disease and at the
hands of pirates and. robbers. On reaching the Holy Land there were few Christian
organisations able to provide assistance but about the year 600 Pope Gregory the Great sent the Abbot Probus to Jerusalem with generous funds for the establishment of a hospice for pilgrims.

Wealthy and pious merchant princes of Amalfi on the coast of Italy assisted. pilgrims
passing through their, Republic. In 1023 they financed the rebuilding of the hospice into
a great hospital.

The persecution of the Christians by the Saracens continued and in 1095 a multinational army was recruited to deliver the Holy Land from the infidel. These Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 and found the hospital doing well tinder Brother Gerard, regarded as the founder of the new Order of Hospitallers. The Crusaders endowed the Hospital with lands and buildings.
Pope Paschal II officially recognised the Order in 1113 and named it "The Order of the
Hospital of St John of Jerusalem" after the hospital financed by the merchants of Amalfi
in Jerusalem. St John the Baptist became the Patron Saint.
For the Badge of the Order the Pope took the emblem of the Republic of Amalfi. The four arms of the Badge represent the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude and its eight points represent the eight Beatitudes; the blessedness of the merciful., the pure, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the humble, the comforters, the meek and the righteous. Its whiteness represents the purity of life required in those defending the faith and serving the needy.

The trisectional. structure of membership in the Order into Knights, Chaplains and
Serving Brothers reflected the Order's tripartite function; military, religious and
charitable.

This multinational Order of St John waged many wars against the Muslim Saracens for
possession. of Jerusalem, which was a Holy City not only for the Christians and
Muslims but also of course for the Jews. Sadly, as we know, all these centuries later
they are still fighting in Jerusalem.

After 200 years in the Holy Land the original Order of St John was forced out in 1.290
and established its headquarters successively in Cyprus, Rhodes and finally Malta. In
each place it built and ran the largest and most modern hospitals of its time and its
buildings can still be seen today.
The original Order lost its standing as a military power when Napoleon drove it. out of
Malta in 1798. It then established itself in Rome where it has remained ever since.

This direct descendant of the original Order is now known as the Sovereign Military and
Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, called of Rhodes, called of Malta, whose
short title is The Sovereign Military Order of Malta. It has a recognised international
status as a sovereign body, with diplomatic representatives in many countries and
delegates to major intergovernmental organisations.

There are four recognised non-Roman Catholic Orders of St John; The Most Venerable
Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (Short title: The Order of St John) Die
Bally Brandenburg des Ritterlichen Ordens Sankt Johannes vom Spital zu Jerusalem
(Short title The Johanniterorden), Johanniterorden i Sverige (A Swedish Royal Order)
Johanniter Order (Orde) in Nederland (A Dutch Royal Order).

These four Orders are associated with one another through a Convention of Alliance of
the Orders of St John of Jerusalem signed in 1961. They have a legitimacy which
derives from recognition by the Crown or by Government. In 1963 they made a joint
declaration of mutual esteem with The Sovereign Military order of Malta, which
"recognises their historical links and the common tradition that inspired their
humanitarian activities".

I am often asked. about a number of self-styled "orders". Many of the unrecognised
orders have their roots in an American organisation called the Knights of Malta Inc.,
which was established in 1911. They are termed the "Shickshinny" orders after the
Pennsylvanian property of an adventurer who took over the organisation in 1936.
Several have enrolled members of the European nobility; Ex-King Peter of Yugoslavia
was closely associated with the Sovereign order of St John of Jerusalem Knights
Hospitaller. Some have engaged to a limited extent in charitable work, though in main
their activities have been only ceremonial. and fraternal. One of the difficulties in
distinguishing the unrecognised orders, not only from the recognised orders but also
from each other, is the close similarities between the detailed wording of their names.

Unrecognised orders sometimes claim that they or their insignia have been accredited by a body called the "International Commission of the orders of Chivalry". Neither this, nor an Australian body called the "Confederation of Chivalry", is recognised by The Crown.

In England the original Order had been established in 1.144. It ceased to exist in all. but
name when King Henry VIII confiscated all its properties with his Act of Dissolution in
1540. The only part of the original. monastic buildings to survive is the gatehouse at
Clerkenwell, which is now the headquarters of The Most Venerable Order of St John.

During the nineteenth century a group of public-spirited citizens revived the name of the
Order in the United Kingdom and before long their activities included the provision of a
voluntary ambulance and first aid service. Their choice of activities was influenced by
two factors; industrialisation and the carnage and enormous waste of human life in
European wars in the mid 19th Century. Life saving techniques for treating injuries at
the site of the injury such as in the trenches, mines and factories, were invented and
called "First Aid".

Those experienced in its practice wanted to teach this "First Aid" to members of the
public so in 1877 they established the St John Ambulance Association. Many of those
trained in First Aid then wished to use these skills for the good of the community so they banded together and in 1.887 formed the St John Ambulance Brigade.

They were also looking for a way to revive the work of the original. Order of St John in
Jerusalem and decided to establish a hospital there; not a general hospital like the
original one but one to fill a specific need. As eye diseases particularly glaucoma and
trachoma, are most prevalent in that part of the world, an Ophthalmic Hospital- was
founded in 1882, staffed and funded from England.
Queen Victoria was very impressed by the work of St John members during her Jubilee
Year when great crowds gathered in the streets of London and St John volunteers were
there assisting the public. In 1888 she granted a Royal Charter creating The Most
Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. The Order was organised as
a Grand Priory in keeping with the ancient knightly and monastic traditions of the
original Order of St John. To identify the British Order of St John from the European
Royal Orders, the Lion and the Unicorn were placed in the four arms of the Cross. The
work of the Order soon spread around the British Empire.

The Order in Australia is currently organised as a Priory within the Grand Priory. The
Prior is traditionally the Governor- General who is also a Knight of the Order. Each
State Governor is traditionally a Deputy Prior and a Knight or Dame of the Order.

The Order has about 2,500 members in Australia. A much larger number of Australians
from all walks of life participate in the charitable work of the Order which is
administered by St John Ambulance Australia through four Branches.

The fundamental role of St John Ambulance is that of the good Samaritan, helping,
without thought of reward, those who need help. Nowhere is this more evident than in
the work of the Operations Branch, whose members are to be seen wearing their familiar
black and white uniforms, giving First Aid at major sporting events, festivals and other
public occasions like Saturday's Anzac Day march or the recent Royal Easter Show.
Last year these volunteers carried out 646,066 hours of first aid duties nationally and
treated 88,579 casualties.

The Operations Branch has been appointed the official providers of First Aid for the
Olympic and Paralympic Games and will be providing 800 volunteers every day for 60
days.

The Training Branch is the largest provider of First Aid training and services in
Australia. It publishes the nation's most authoritative manuals on First Aid. Something
like 2.5 million Australians from all walks of life have qualified for a. St John First Aid
certificate. Well over 200,000 certificates are issued each year. In response to industry
and consumer demand, specialist courses such as remote area First Aid and First Aid for Divers have been developed. Our most recent initiative has been the development of a world first CD-ROM package, Australian First Aid.

St John produces an extensive range of First Aid kits for the home, workplace, vehicle
or for recreational use. The range includes special purpose kits for hikers, truck drivers,
anglers and divers. Kits can also be tailored to meet specific needs. Funds generated
from First Aid Training courses, First Aid publications and kit sales support the
charitable work of St John.
The Ophthalmic Hospital Branch gives the gift of sight by supporting the St John
Ophthalmic Hospital. in Jerusalem. It provides fellowships for young Australian eye
surgeons who work on the Hospital’s staff for about one year. The most recent one has
been Dr Stephanie Young - the first Australian woman volunteer doctor.

The fourth and newest Branch, the Community Care Branch, (previously known as the
Fellowship Branch) was founded in 1988 to celebrate the centenary of St John in
Australia and to deliver humanitarian care and assistance in areas other than those
covered by the traditional St John activities in First Aid and Training. Some 1600
volunteers gave over 73,000 hours of service last year meeting the needs of young
people, the housebound and the elderly.

I was involved with the development in New South Wales of a Programme to Aid
Literacy, selected because of the statistics available to us through the International Year
of Literacy in 1,990. This programme provides training and support to volunteers who
are matched with school children experiencing difficulties with reading and writing. We
have now trained 1500 volunteers who are called St John PAL'S. (Programme to Aid
Literacy). PALs are active in 125 schools throughout NSW and last year gave nearly
100,000 hours of service, each volunteer spending one hour a week for one year with the same child.

Since starting the programme in 1991 we have found there is a great demand by parents, grandparents and other interested members of the community wishing to do a course in order to be able to help a particular child or grandchild. We have therefore established an Early Literacy Course which we run at St John House and at 1.5 other locations in NSW. Membership of the Community Care Branch is open to all interested members of the community.

Next year is the International Year of Older Persons and as the newly appointed
National Chairman of the Community Care Branch I will be involved with the St John
contribution to it. In NSW the programme will be called LinkAGE and will involve
visits to the frail aged. The Community Care Branch is thus carrying on the tradition of
the Order of St John expressed through its motto:

PRO FIDE: FOR THE FAITH
and
PRO IJTILITATE HOMINUM: FOR THE SERVICE OF MANKIND

Mrs Peter Grogan DSTJ
Chairman, St John Ambulance Australia (NSW)
at The 1998 Queen's Birthday Dinner
of The Australian Monarchist League on the 28 April 1998