TheTheRussian Connection
An essay on the most contentious period in the history of the Order of St. John
by
James J. Algrant, C.St.J.
No episode in the long history of the Order of Malta is more curious than its Russian connection, beginning with Tsar Paul I as first Protector, then Grand Master of the Order. And no episode has provided would-be Orders of St. John with more arguments to support claims they are legitimate offspring of the historic Order of St. John, arguments which are rejected by the Order of Malta and the Protestant Orders of St. John.
The would-be orders claim that they are survivals of a non-Catholic Grand Priory set up by Paul when he was elected seventy-second Grand Master of the Order of St. John and the seat of the Order was established, for a time, in St. Petersburg. Under Paul, the would-be orders say, the Order of St. John became an ecumenical chivalric body divided into two sections; one for Catholics and the other for Orthodox and Protestants. As Grand Master, the Tsar created the Orthodox Grand Priory as part of the body of the historical Order. The exclusively Catholic Sovereign Order, they assert, came into being on 16 September 1802 by an initiative of Pope Pius VII and has nothing in common with their Order which is the one founded in the eleventh century in the Holy Land.
The opponents of such reasoning point out that Paul's election was illegal for a number of reasons, not the least being that he was a married Orthodox Christian when the Statutes of the Order required then as now that the Grand Master be Catholic and celibate. Nevertheless it is accepted by all, including the Sovereign Order, that Paul, though not canonically, was its de facto seventy-second Grand Master. Whether the Order survived in Russia after his death is something else, something that depends on how surviving documents are interpreted and the intentions of Paul and his successor, Alexander I, are understood. Claims by some exponents of the Russian connection that the original Order of St. John now has its seat in the United States is another matter altogether, one that is characterized by an absence of any documentation.
The most persuasive works in support of claims for the survival of the Order in Russia are Paul Granier de Cassagnac's "Livre Rouge", Eric Muraise's "Histoire Sincère des Ordres de l'Hôpital" and a series of articles by Harrison Smith published in the Maltese journal, Scientia.(1) The most compelling rejections of the survivalists’ claims are found in a work of two professed knights of the Sovereign Order, Cyrill Toumanoff and Olgerd de Sherbovitz-Wetzor, "L'Ordre de Malte et l'Empire de Russie" and "L'Histoire Politique de l'Ordre Souverain de St Jean" by Geraud Count Michel de Pierredon, a Bailiff of the Order.
To understand the arguments on both sides, some knowledge is required of the history of the Order at the end of the eighteenth century. Russian interest in the Order of Malta oscillated between two poles of attractions. One was the Order's naval capacity, including its skill in training sailors. As early as the reign of Peter I, the Order had been engaged in training officers for the Imperial navy. The other attraction was Malta itself as a potential base for a Russian fleet that had broken out of the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean. In 1775, Catherine II tried to foment a revolt on the island. In 1776 and in 1788 she tried, again unsuccessfully, to involve the Order in a war against the Turks, promising to return to it the island of Rhodes, its former seat. In 1788, the Kingdom of Naples attempted to cede to the Russians rights over the island which it held as successor to Emperor Charles V(2) who as King of Sicily gave Malta to the Order. Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan managed to thwart the Neapolitan attempt.
Closer to St. Petersburg, the Order of Malta had possessed very valuable estates in Poland since the seventeenth century when one of the country's greatest land owners, Prince Janusz Volhynie of Ostrog, the last of his line, died in 1673 . He had drawn up once in 1609 and confirmed in 1618 a testament that bequeathed his estates to the Order. The result was a long litigation by his collateral heirs which ended in 1774 with the heirs receiving half of the estates which were constituted into a Polish Priory consisting of eight regular commanderies and eight others known as "family commanderies". These latter were handed over to Prince Januz’s lay collateral heirs. The commanders were exempted from the rule of celibacy had the status of "novice" in the Order and they could pass on their commanderies to their heirs who were received into the Order as novices if they met the Order’s requirements and, so long as no professed heirs were found. The measure was approved by Grand Master de Rohan and the pontificate.
The estates in south-eastern Poland included six hundred towns and villages. At the first partition of Poland in 1772 the Order's properties ended up part of Russia's acquisition. Empress Catherine II confiscated them, at the same time leaving hope that she would return them at least in part.
In 1789 the Order had consisted of 671 commanderies in Europe, of which 254 were French. These provided half the Order's annual revenue before they were plundered and appropriated by the Revolution. Thus the already difficult circumstances of the Order were made much worse. As a consequence, de Rohan tried to persuade the Russians to allow it to receive funds from the Order's seized properties in Poland. By the end of 1792, the Revolutionary Directorate cut off the pensions received by French knights and threatened them with the loss of their nationality if they did not resign from the Order. The Order reacted in 1793 by refusing to recognize the French Republic and by opening its bases to the British fleet. France then agreed to recognize the Order unofficially in order to maintain a diplomatic representative on Malta as a cover for conducting intelligence and destabilizing operations.
On the death of Catherine II in 1796, her unstable son, Paul I, became Tsar. His exalted, mystical notions and his love of chivalry were to have dramatic effects on the story of the Order. Faced with an uncertain future and aware of the Tsar's enthusiasm for chivalrous traditions, the Grand Master dispatched Bailiff Giulio de Litta-Visconti-Arese to St. Petersburg as the Order's minister there. In 1797, Litta successfuly negotiated a treaty with Paul that was accompanied by a request from the Emperor that the Holy See appoint a representative to his Court. Simultaneously a Russian Grand Priory of the Order of Malta was created to compensate for the loss of the Polish Grand Priory. The new body produced twice the revenues for the Order the Polish priory had done. While the decrees dated 4 July 1797 founding the Russian Grand Priories, and a treaty of alliance with the Order included the familiar formula, in perpetuity, we shall see, as Prince Toumanoff reminds us, there was nothing to prevent one autocrat from reversing the decisions taken by his predecessor.
When the Directorate ruling France learned of events in St. Petersburg, it instructed its man in Malta to increase his activities preparing the way for a French takeover. In the same year, 1797, Emmanuel de Rohan died and was followed as Grand Master by Ferdinand von Hompesch.
The new Grand Master recognized the vulnerability of the archipelago he ruled to French attack and chose to play what might be called the Russian card. He sent Count de Litta back to St Petersburg, this time with the proposal that the Tsar agree to be the Protector of the Order. The proposal was accompanied by the gift of the insignia worn by Grand Master Jean de La Vallette, the hero of the Great Siege of 1565, and a golden tunic embroidered with the eight-pointed cross. The Tsar consented, assuming (wrongly) that with his acceptance of the title Protector and La Vallette's regalia, he had become not merely a member of the Order but Master of the Russian Grand Priory with the freedom of action to which his Imperial position had accustomed him. He immediately began to appoint members to the Order without seeking prior approval from the Grand Master. One of his most notable conferrals was the appointment of the beautiful but wayward Emma Hamilton, Admiral Nelson's mistress, as a Dame Grand Cross of the Order in 1799.(3) The Order signed a second treaty with the Tsar in 1798, allowing him to create seventy-two commanderies in addition to the twelve original ones comprising the Russian Grand Priory.
In April 1798 the French government decided to seize Malta and shortly thereafter informed all the European states of its intention. The allies' reaction was that if the French were telling the world they planned to seize Malta, they were bound to have other plans and would strike elsewhere. According to a French military historian, Colonel Maurice Suire, the Order's military forces, still appeared respectable, on paper at least, and the island's fortifications were in good repair. The European powers considered that the Order on Malta could hold out for at least three months without undue hardship, and then if obliged to, could execute an orderly withdrawal. In the event, Hompesch surrendered on 12 June, three days after the French fleet carrying Bonaparte and his army appeared at Malta and following only a small and inept attempt at resistance. French intelligence had functioned perfectly. The defense had been paralyzed by a revolt of the local militia, by a loss of control on the part of the Grand Master and by the refusal to fight of some French and Spanish knights.
The capitulation agreement, signed twelve days after the signature in St. Petersburg of the second treaty between the Order and Russia, gave all of the island's military facilities to the French and allowed the looting of all the Order's treasures.(4) A question has been raised as to the validity of the surrender since Hompesch’s representatives accepted terms which they were not wholly authorized to do and which had not been accepted by the Sacred Council. The surrender may not have been valid de jure but it certainly was de facto. The French permitted von Hompesch and twenty followers to leave Malta for Austrian Trieste, taking with them the Order's most sacred relics, the arm of St. John the Baptist, and the Icon of Our Lady of Philermos, already an object of devotion for five hundred years. First, however, the French stripped the treasures of their jeweled settings. Bonaparte took to wearing the ring that had been on the hand of the Baptist. (5) Fifty-three French knights defected to Bonaparte's forces. Twenty-three members of the Order, mostly old and infirm, were allowed to remain on Malta.
By the time the French took Malta from the Order, they had already stripped it of its assets wherever the Revolutionary armies advanced in Europe. In northern Italy and the Rhineland the Order was ruined. As Hompesch departed Malta, the Order was without sufficient funds to honor its obligations.(6)
The fall of Malta enraged the Tsar who convoked a Conventual College in St. Petersburg. It consisted of knights of the Russian Grand Priory, others who had followed the Count of Provence(7) into exile at Mittau in the Russian Baltic province of Kurland, and those knights who had accompanied de Litta to Russia. At the urging of the Count of Provence, French knights who had been loyal to Hompesch had gone to Germany or Austria after leaving Malta also joined the Russian Grand Priory, as did de Litta. Many, Bosredon-Rancijat among them, had given up their vows and married. (8) In 1797, the newly instituted body had consisted of sixteen members, six of whom were non-Russian. At the end of 1798 there were one hundred and seventeen members, ninety-seven of whom were non-Russian, and at the end of 1799, there were one hundred and eighty-four members, one hundred and sixty-six of whom were non-Russian. On 6 September 1798, members of the Russian Grand Priory and other knights of the Order residing in Russia deposed von Hompesch, declaring him "guilty of the most stupid negligence." On 7 November 1798 they elected the Protector, Paul I, Grand Master. A fortnight later, he accepted, assuming the responsibilities of the Order in keeping, as he put it, with his Imperial prerogatives. (9)
The Pope, powerless and distraught, wrote repeatedly to de Litta expressing his concern. While the tone of the letters was flattering to the Tsar, the Pontiff pointed out that the decisions of the expanded Russian Grand Priory were not binding on the other langues, and if von Hompesch was to be deposed, then he should be deposed according to the Order's statutes. A letter dated 5 October was cast in ambiguous terms. On one hand Pius VI seemed to be sending his proxy vote to de Litta, on the other it could be read as a warning to the Tsar.
For his part, von Hompesch protested against his deposition to the Pope, the Emperors of Russia and the Holy Roman Empire and the other crowned heads of Europe. Reactions to the events in St Petersburg differed widely. The langues of Spain assured von Hompesch of their loyalty "so long as it was not contrary to the orders of the [Spanish] King". The German Grand Priory approved the St. Petersburg action while placing itself under the protection of the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II. Elsewhere the langues avoided committing themselves.
On 10 December 1798 a religious service was held to invest the Tsar as Grand Master. The officiating prelate was Monsignor Lorenzo de Litta, the Apostolic Delegate to St Petersburg and the brother of the Order's minister. Henceforth, the fate of the Order was as much in the hands of the resourceful Litta brothers as it was in those of the Tsar. With one brother the representative of the Order and the other of the Pope, it is understandable that Paul believed his accession was regarded as legitimate by both the knights and their religious superior. In fact, the struggle over legitimacy was about to begin.
The Tsar felt reassured when Monsignor de Litta showed him a letter, dated 5 November 1798 from Pius VI, cast in vague and therefore reassuring language. On 25 December the Tsar, in a confident mood, wrote to the Pope to inform him he had assumed the office of Grand Master and to explain his policy towards the French. Monsignor de Litta, reporting the religious investiture to the Holy See, said he had informed the Imperial chancellery (and not the Tsar directly) of Papal concern about its propriety. Both sides were floundering in a fog of misunderstanding, which was finally dispersed by two Pontifical letters, one to von Hompesch, dated 9 February 1799, the other to Monsignor de Litta of 16 March. The first disavowed Russian machinations and insisted the Pope would condone neither breaches of the Statutes of the Order nor of the rights of the Holy See. The second letter listed all the pontifical grievances and instructed de Litta to point them out to the Tsar as "delicately as possible.and choosing the most appropriate time so as not to affect His Majesty's most favorable disposition towards the Order". The Pope felt that "to remain silent any longer would result in betraying our Papal authority and give an appearance of weakness in a situation which is of interest to all Catholic monarchs."(10) To remain silent would indeed have been a confession of the Pope's impotence.
Eric Muraise, a supporter of the thesis of the survival in Russia of the Order, points out that Pius VI’s letter to the Apostolic Delegate and the manner in which it was delivered displayed startling deviations from normal practice. It included a memorandum in clear text, accusatory in tone, and a message in cipher no less so. The letter and accompanying memorandum were delivered to de Litta on 17 April by way of the Imperial Chancellery. The Papal envoy noted that the envelope had been tampered with and re-sealed. Thus, according to Muraise, the Russians were perfectly aware of the contents. But there was more. On 14 March, two days before the dispatch of the correspondence from Florence where Bonaparte was keeping Pius prisoner, the Imperial Chancellor told Monsignor de Litta privately that he would soon be receiving a pontifical brief which would oblige him to displease the Tsar. This came to pass and on 28 March, the Tsar dismissed Bailiff de Litta as Lieutenant of the Grand Master and appointed Count Soltikov, exiling de Litta to his Russian wife's country estates. On 18 April, the day after the Imperial Chancellery delivered the two Papal messages to Monsignor de Litta, he was dismissed from his post as Grand Almoner of the Order. On 9 May he was expelled from Russia and on the 16th the Russians closed down the Apostolic Delegation. Thus it appears that the Tsar was aware of everything without being officially informed of the Papal disavowal of his election as Grand Master.
Muraise speculates that Monsignor de Litta was assigned, whether he knew it or not, the disastrous "mission impossible" by Pius VI as a means of informing Paul of the Holy See's position without putting the Tsar in a position where he would feel obliged to save face by a public gesture, such as severing relations with the Holy See. Muraise concludes that this is the only logical explanation for all of the breaches in transmission security and for the fact that the Imperial Chancellor knew what was in the message before it was even dispatched.
In addition to the Tsar's personal unsuitability for the office as a married Orthodox Christian, Pius VI objected, as the Tsar was aware, to the unrepresentative character of the so-called Conventual College in St Petersburg. Others, too, were struck by the oddity of the Tsar as Grand Master. The Duke of Angouleme,(11) who himself had been made Grand Prior of France as a child, congratulated the Tsar on his investiture as Grand Master, at the same time expressing surprise at seeing a non-professed member of the Order at its head. This resulted in a fit of imperial rage, followed by a reconciliation and an exchange of crosses between the French and the Russians. Emperor Francis II, however, was expecting the renewal of war with France and was determined to maintain his alliance with the Tsar. Francis voiced no criticism of Paul's election. After Paul appealed on 1 Jan 1799 to all the Order's priories to rally to his cause, Francis waited a short interval and then helped consolidate Paul's position on 9 July Francis by ordering von Hompesch, his subject, to resign formally as Grand Master. The distraught Hompesch obeyed and sent the relics he had taken into exile to Paul I, who immediately restored them to splendid reliquaries.
The Tsar's appeal was successful. The Bohemian and German Grand Priories, the Bavarian Priory, those French knights who had followed von Hompesch into exile in Trieste, and those at the important city of Konstanz on Lake Constance, reluctantly(12) joined the Russian Grand Priory. All in all Paul I had been accepted as Grand Master by the principal governments of Europe with the exception of France, Spain and the Holy See. Within the order, the priories in Spain, Portugal and the Grand Priory of Rome escaped him. Thus while he was not Grand Master de jure, he certainly was de facto.
The French occupation of Malta had proved as oppressive to the Maltese as it did to the people of all other lands occupied by the Revolutionary forces. The Maltese had begun to resist while at the same time the occupation forces were feeling the effect of a naval blockade imposed by Great Britain. The deteriorating situation obliged the French to surrender to the British on 5 September 1800. The British thereupon moved into Malta and remained for the next one hundred and sixty-four years. Under the terms of the 1802 Treaty of Amiens between Britain and France and its satellite governments in Madrid and the Netherlands, the British were to leave Malta and the knights to return. Bonaparte, however, resumed making war and the Treaty went out the window. In 1814, following the French defeat by the Allied Powers, 1814, British possession of Malta was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris.
In St. Petersburg, Paul set up in addition to the Russian Catholic Grand Priory, a Russian Orthodox Grand Priory to receive knights from all the Orthodox national churches as well as Protestants, such as Swedish Lutherans. The Orthodox Grand Priory at first comprised ninety-eight commanderies to which were added twenty more, maintained by funds from the Imperial postal service. Another twenty were established as family commanderies.(13) Many have said that the statutes written by Bailiff de Litta ressembled those of the German Protestant Johanniterorden in restricting the vows to be taken by Orthodox knights to those of Charity and Obedience. (14) .
At the end of 1799, the two Russian Priories numbered six hundred and forty-eight members, seventy percent of them Russian, twenty-five percent French, and five percent a mix of Germans, Italians and Irish. There were twenty-six conditional family commanders who could, with the consent of the Order, bequeath their commandery to a collateral male heir of the same name provided the latter 1) was able to prove his eligibility to succeed in conformity with the deed of the foundation of the commandery; 2) had been received into the Order according to the rules and had paid his passage fees; 3) had served two years as an officer in the Imperial Army, and 4) had five years seniority in the Order starting from the day proof was submitted of his direct and legitimate descent by primogeniture in the family of the founder.
Muraise says there were in addition five "honorary and unconditional" knights commander (the five Golovkins. See Note 13) and some "unconditionally hereditary commanderies", that were not family commanderies.(15) The best known of these is that of Count Rumiantsov, in favor of the Military Orphans' Institute. Here, three candidates were designated with rights of precedence in their male line. The first candidate kept the commandery until the extinction of his line when it passed to the other two in succession to return to the founder in case of total extinction, which is what happened in the case of the Rumiantsov foundation.(16)
The Tsar, concerned about the lack of chivalric tradition among the Russian nobility, sought to create cadre that would exemplify chivalric values. In December 1797, as Protector of the Order, he ordered a set of guidelines reflecting these values to be drawn up for the education and military instruction of the adolescent sons of members of the Order. Next he re-formed the Corps of Imperial Pages, founded by Peter the Great. A colonel of the Imperial Army, together with members of the Order, drew up a curriculum inspired by the code of the Order of Malta. A new, black uniform was introduced with a distinguishing eight-pointed cross worn on the left breast of the tunic. Candidates between the ages of twelve and fifteen were of noble stock, sons and grandsons of generals or senior civil servants who were preferably members of the Order. The pages were trained for seven years, not only as students but also by serving in the houses of princely families.
The Tsar also established the Regiment of Chevalier Guards to act as the Grand Master's escort. Troopers and officers alike were recruited from the nobility. Service in the regiment was arduous and severe: Paul I insisted that it drill daily regardless of weather or temperature. The regimental badge was the Imperial double-eagle with an eight-pointed cross on its breast. On the cross was a shield of the coat of arms of the Order, a white cross on a red field, and a trophy with two flags of the Order. The whole was encircled with the words, Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem. Napoleon inflicted terrible losses on the Chevalier Guards at the battle of Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, but the regiment was maintained and retained high prestige until the end of the Russian Empire.
Paul I did not live to see his chivalric plans brought to fruition. On 23 March 1800, Count Pahlen, the Governor of St Petersburg, with other senior courtiers driven to desperation by the Tsar's irrational and cruel behavior, strangled him in his palace. The new Tsar, Alexander, distanced himself from Bonaparte, whom Paul had hero-worshipped, and allied Russia with Britain. It was soon apparent he had little interest in playing the role of Grand Master. However, while he wished to divest himself of the Grand Magistracy, he also intended to keep the advantages derived from exercising an autocratic protectorate over the Order.
On 28 March 1801 he signed a ukase confirming his protection over the Order, thus maintaining his position as Grand Prior of Russia. He also announced he would summon a Chapter General of the Order (17) to elect a Grand Master "worthy to preside over the Order and to re-establish it in its former state in keeping with its ancient statutes and traditions." He confirmed Nicholas Soltikov as Lieutenant of the Grand Master. While declaring respect for the rules by which the Order governed itself, a Tsar was once again flouting them. The Statutes of the Order required the convening of a Conventual College to elect a Grand Master, not of a Chapter General.
After several months of negotiations it became apparent that it would be impossible to bring together the required number of knights to constitute a proper Chapter General capable of representing the Order's Sacred Council, the langues, the Priories and the Bishop of Malta. A body limited to the members of the Order residing in Russia would be as constitutionally invalid as was the Electoral College of 1798. The Sacred Council found a way out which, while not in keeping with the letter of the Imperial edict, conformed to its spirit. By its decree of 20 July 1801, the priories of the Order were instructed to summon their Provincial Chapters to designate candidates for the Grand Mastership. The names of these candidates were to be passed to the Sacred Council which was to submit the lists to the Pope who would choose the Grand Master. The decree specified that this procedure was to be used only on this occasion and was not to be taken as setting a precedent. This did not make the procedure any less contrary to the Statutes of the Order, as supporters of the survival of the Order in Russia argue quite justifiably. Only the langues of Castille, Aragon and Portugal rejected the procedure and seceded from the Order, opening the way for the King of Spain on 20 January 1802 to declare himself Grand Master of the Order of St. John in his realm and make it an honor bestowed by the crown.
Nine of the existing priories submitted lists. They were the Russian Catholic and Russian Orthodox, those of Germany, Bavaria, Bohemia, Portugal and, in southern Italy and Sicily, Capua, Berletta, and Messina. The Priories of Rome, Pisa, and Lombardy, all in areas under French control, abstained. Pius VI had died in 1800 and the first choice for Grand Master of the new Pope, Pius VII, was a Bailiff Ruspoli, who turned down the office on grounds of age and ill-health. The British, informed of this, feared that instead of the Order being freed of Russian influence, that influence would deepen. Under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, the Order was to resume possession of Malta. London would not tolerate this if it meant that Russia would then exercise control over the island, however indirectly. British determination to remain in Malta was thus strengthened, although the Treaty of Amiens required it to evacuate from the islands.
Pius VII's next choice was a Bailiff Caracciolo, who also turned down the offer. The Pope then turned to a Commander Romagnoso who also refused the honor. Finally, in exasperation, the Pontiff designated Bailiff Giovanni Battista Tommasi, who had been the Russian Grand Priories' candidate all along. Tommasi duly accepted and became Grand Master on 9 February 1803. Alexander sent the magistral crown Paul had had made for himself to Tommasi and the new Grand Master, recognized by the European powers, received the ambassadors of Great Britain and the French Republic while waiting in Messina to be permitted by the British to make the short crossing to Valletta. Permission never came. Bonaparte resumed his wars in 1805, the year which saw the victory of Lord Nelson at Trafalgar over the French fleet. A disillusioned Tommasi died the same year, one month after von Hompesch had died in penury.
On 17 June 1805 the Council of the Order met at Catania. Caracciolo obtained the support of twenty-two of the thirty-six electors present but as forty-five electors were needed to conduct a constitutionally valid election, the Pope was again asked to name one. Caracciolo was unacceptable to Bonaparte and therefore to Pius VII, all too aware of the First Consul's way with Supreme Pontiffs he found difficult. In the end Pius VII eschewed naming a Grand Master and instead appointed Innico Maris Guevara-Suardo as Lieutenant of the Grand Magistracy. On 6 October 1805 the Council concurred, hoping that Caracciolo might be accepted as Grand Master at a later date when circumstances permitted. The magistracy was transferred to Catania, then Ferrara, and finally in 1834 to Rome where it has remained ever since.
When Pius VII offered Ruspoli the Grand Magistery, he reversed the policy of his predecessor, as Eric Muraise points out. Pius VI never accepted the validity of Hompesch's ouster and maintained, albeit weakly, that he would never lend himself to acts contrary to the Statutes of the Order. Pius VII promoted a procedure that did just that, in effect admitting that there were cases when the Statutes could no longer be respected. If this argument could be used to legitimate the election of Tommasi in 1803, the survivalists claim, it could be as well applied to the election of Paul in 1798. Pius VI had contested Paul I's magistracy; Pius VII recognized that "the Order would have been annihilated had not the very powerful Paul I extended his hand at a time when it was an almost lifeless body. Consequently the Order, in its present state, is greatly indebted to him." This reversal was due as much to the pressing situation created by the French wars of expansion as to Alexander I's ultimatum that there would be no Apostolic Delegate accredited to the Court unless the Pope agreed to the irregular procedure that culminated in the choice of Tommasi.
To avoid future conflicts over the legitimacy of Tommasi's election, Pius VII pronounced that no one would be permitted to pass judgement on the legality of the procedure. He reserved the right to settle all future arguments so as to "block the way to any further troubles". In spite of the almost unanimous agreement of the Priories, Geraud Michel de Pierredon(18) describes the procedure used to establish a Grand Master as a new measure which placed the Order even more deeply under Papal control while transforming the Grand Master into the representative of a single Priory, the Russian. The Popes henceforth, until 1879, named the head of the Order on their own initiative without consideration for the votes of the Sacred Council. (19) This, the survivalists say, provoked a rupture between the Grand Magistracy in Italy, under Papal control, and the Order as embodied in the Russian priories.(20)
In terms of assuring the survival of the Order in the world where Bonaparte was on the ascendant, a powerless Pope's protection was clearly less valuable than that of a schismatic but redoubtable Tsar. The survivalists point out that the danger once past, the Order found itself existing in a reduced state under an interregnum that lasted seventy-four years during which it was administered by Papal appointees who provided little in the way of energetic leadership, at least up to the appointment of Ceschi a Santa Croce as Lieutenant in 1871, then as Grand Master when the office was restored in 1879. This may be an unfair judgment as during that period ambulance brigades were established, associations created in Germany as well as an hospital in the Holy Land, all with very little resources and power.
In St. Petersburg, the Imperial Protector continued to name new knights to the Order. In 1801 the Grand Prior of Germany had received several nominated by Alexander who also recalled to St. Petersburg several knights sent into exile by his father. These included Bailiff de Litta who inaugurated the reformed School for Imperial Pages in 1802. Litta had cooled towards the Grand Master in Catania, even though it was Litta who had picked Tommasi as the Russian candidate for the post. Relations worsened following the death of Tommasi in 1805. The hesitation displayed by Pius VII over the election of a new Grand Master was seen in St. Petersburg as a symptom of potentially fatal weakness in the Order. Even before Tommasi's death, the minutes of the Imperial Council of Ministers from April 1802 to May 1803 reflect doubts as to whether the Order's government in Italy could survive.
So long as the Order was not re-established on Malta, the Council of Ministers agreed, there was no point in sending the Grand Magistracy responsions, the priories' customary annual payments to the central government of the Order. Instead, it was proposed, the monies of the Russian priories should be invested so as to earn interest. A few of the counselors proposed that the blocked funds be dedicated to charity. Others suggested that a wholly separate Russian Order of St John be established, comparable to the Johanniterorden in Protestant Germany. Others called for the Order to be completely suppressed in Russia but with provisions made to pay life pensions to the family commanders. One Imperial Minister, Koutchoubey, proposed ending the practice of bestowing the Order's traditional insignia which he considered to be of no particular benefit to the Empire. At the end of 1803 the Council agreed ominously that the future of the Order in Russia required consideration.
Tommasi learned of these deliberations from two letters, one from de Maisonneuve dated April 1803 and the other from Soltikov sent in October of the same year. Both confirmed that no further funds would be transferred to the Grand Magistracy so long as the Order was not back in Malta. Maisonneuve also expressed fear that the Russian Orthodox Grand Priory would be suppressed.
The situation within the Order became more fraught when the Pope ignored the candidacy of Caracciolo, renewed after the death of Tommasi, by appointing Guevara-Suardo as Lieutenant. Caracciolo approached the government of his native Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to obtain justice and Alexander I threatened Guevara-Suardo with the creation of an independant organization for the Russian Priories which would keep their revenues in Russia. Although Alexander's government had considered stopping the transfer of responsions to Catania two years earlier, the Grand Magistracy continued to receive the passage fees of new knights admitted into the Russian priories up to 1805. The following year this, too, was halted. When the Order asked St Petersburg for 700,000 rubles to be unblocked, it was sent a paltry 12,000 rubles. In the view of some, the complete cutting off of funds was the Imperial government's reaction to a letter from de Maisonneuve to Guevara-Suardo, dated 13 August 1805, which read:
"The Government of the Order acted correctly when it proceeded to elect a successor. It would have been better, however, to omit any conditions and to invest the winner immediately (21) with all the magistral powers. This important determination would have avoided any possible outside obstacles.(22)
"Be that as it may, as soon as I was informed of the nomination of the new Grand Master I hastened to communicate it to the Imperial Ministry and I am pleased to announce that the decision has been very well received here and that H.M. the Emperor has deigned to approve the nomination.
"Doubtless when the Sacred Council is apprised of the opinion of the Russian Court, it will recognize the necessity to support its work and to show itself inflexible to any possible vexations which might occur.
"I dare to believe, Sir, that this is also your opinion and I do not hesitate to declare that the welfare of the Order depends on it.
"Commander de Maisonneuve"
Whether or not the letter was the immediate cause for Alexander to ditch the Order, there were certainly other considerations that could have prompted such an action. At a meeting at Tilsit in 1807, Alexander had been reconciled with Bonaparte, or rather the Emperor Napoleon as he had become the previous year. But the reconciliation did not last and the Tsar judged the time had come to increase spending on his army. The assets of the Order in Russia, rich and inefficiently managed, were ripe for picking. The divorce between the Tsar and the Order, begun with the denial of funds to the Catania administration, was followed by three key measures effecting the Order in Russia. These were an Imperial decreee in 1810, a decree of the Imperial Senate in 1811 and a Ministerial decision in 1817.
Muraise rightly considers these measures to be at the heart of the debate which opposes supporters of the survival of the Order in Russia and the internationally recognized Orders of St. John. The Sovereign Order takes the view that these decrees clearly show the Russian Priories were suppressed, their properties and funds appropriated and the titles related to them eliminated. Those bodies claiming legitimacy through a Russian connection assert that although the resources of the Russian Priories were appropriated, the titles and dignities that had accompanied them were not abolished. In this survivalist view, the Russian priories, in the aftermath of Alexander's measures, took on a different but thoroughly valid character under Nicholas I, maintaining the established criteria for admission and the transmission of hereditary commanderies.
The Sovereign Order, according to Muraise, makes use of arguments that are mutually incompatible. One is that advanced by Count Michel de Pierredon in 1963, the other by Fra Cyrill Toumanoff and Fra Olgerd de Sherbovitz-Wetzor in 1969. All those concerned support their cases by references to Russian documents. Difficulties arise from discrepancies in the translations of these documents.
There are three translations into French of the 1810 Imperial Ukase which all parties accept except for one expression in the translation used by Michel de Pierredon which is questioned by Toumanoff and Sherbovitz. However, this phrase has no bearing on the dispute between the survivalists and the recognized orders.
Two French versions of the 1811 Senatorial Decree, that of Toumanoff and Sherbovitz and Muraise's, differ more seriously. The former omits the ending of the document entirely and uses a biased terminology in translating the main body of the text.
The three French versions of the 1817 Ministerial decision, used by Michel de Pierredon, Muraise, and Toumanoff and Sherbovitz, exhibit very marked differences.
The Imperial Ukase of 1810 cites as the reason for its promulgation financial considerations raised by the Russian government. Its seven articles declare the Russian order and the family or hereditary commanderies are to be maintained "until further dispositions;" the Imperial Treasury is to take charge of managing the Order's assets; operating expenses of the Order, that is salaries of its officials and knights' pensions, will continue to be met; the government of the Order is not to receive further subsidies for the maintenance of buildings or to grant new pensions.
In 1810, the Order's properties and other assets were inventoried and in 1811, in compliance with the Senatorial Decree, so were the family or hereditary commanderies. The decree gave the families that had endowed commanderies two ways of recuperating their estates: either they could make a one-time payment in proportion to the income derived from the property or they could divide this amount into lifetime monthly payments to the Imperial Treasury. Funds received by the Government from these commanderies were to be used to cover the Order's expenses, to assist military pensioners and for other charitable works.
Muraise points out that the term "hereditary commanderies" appears twice in the main part of the text of the legally certified translation used by him and other survivalists whereas the Order of Malta and its writers, Toumanoff and Sherbovitz, refer to family commanderies. In the final part of the text, missing from the Toumanoff and Sherbovitz version, the word hereditary qualifying commanders and commanderies appears four times in the translation cited by Muraise. In his view, no confusion is possible in translating the Russian term. In any event, the Senatorial decree refers only to the properties of these commanderies and says nothing about their status as honorific titles.
In the same year as the Senatorial decree, the Tsar suspended the office of Sovereign Order's representative, as the incumbent, the Duke of Serracapriola, reported to Catania in a letter dated 26 April. This meant, as Muraise emphasizes, that the Tsar had broken off Russian diplomatic recognition of the Order.
Implementation of the Imperial and Senatorial decrees was painful. The Order's officials were evicted from the Vorontsov Palace in St Petersburg which was returned to the School for Pages. Maisonneuve found quarters at the residence of Bailiff de Litta, storing his files in a rented shack. The Priories' officials were dismissed and the employees transferred elsewhere. By the end of 1812 the dismantling of the Order's infrastructure was complete, even though Litta informed Catania that the "Roman [Catholic] Priory still maintained some form of existence". The Grand Magistracy in Catania hoped the Catholic Priory might be perpetuated by Polish subjects of the Tsar and refused to accept that the end of the Order in Russia had come. In spite of the further deterioration of the situation in 1813, the Lieutenancy of the Order appointed an "interim receiver" who was supposed to recuperate the responsions appropriated by the Russian Treasury.
The next incident which has given rise to opposing interpretations by those supporting and those rejecting the survival of the Order in Russia involved a young army officer, Ensign Lazarev, and took place in 1817. Toumanoff finds in the Lazarev affair proof that the Order in Russia was absolutely suppressed by Alexander I. The survivalists believe what happend justifies their position.
Muraise describes the background to the affair as follows. Caracciolo, who had been denied confirmation by the Pope because he was unacceptable to Napoleon, had been granted a pension by the Tsar. But Caracciolo also set about obtaining money from passage fees paid by Russians to whom he awarded membership in the Order, complete with diplomas and insignia. This activity caused embarassment to the Tsar who was both Protector of the Order and its Grand Prior in Russia. However, he felt obliged to confirm the prerogatives, of what Muraise calls the "elected Grand Master." Nevertheless, the Pro-Vice Chancellor de Maisonneuve and Soltikov, who had served as Lieutenant of the Grand Master under Paul and Alexander, began to ask themselves who was the legitimate Head of the Order, Caracciolo or Guevara-Suardo? In February 1809 the Chapter of the Russian Catholic Grand Priory decided that Guevara-Suardo was its legitimate head pointing out, however, that the rights of the Tsar-Protector were paramount. As knights' insignia continued to arrive from both Caracciolo and Guevara-Suardo, Soltikov and Maisonneuve, though outraged by Caracciolo's maneuvers, tried to get Guevara-Suardo to endorse the crosses awarded by his rival and approved by the Tsar. Tension between Maisonneuve and Soltikov and the two Italians, mounted to the point where Maisonneuve was denounced as being responsible for the measures against the magistracy taken by the Tsar in 1810 and 1811. In 1817 the Tsar called an end to the rival distribution of honors by prohibiting the wearing of all insignia sent from Italy. This, according to Muraise, was what lay behind the Lazarev affair.
In 1817, as Muraise tells it, the Order of Malta initiated a charm offensive in Russia, awarding its decorations through the Duke of Serracapriola. One of these was awarded to an Ensign Lazarev, who following standing procedure, requested authorization from the government to wear it. The Council of Ministers, seized of the request, set up a committee to examine it. The committee recommended that Lazarev's request be denied, which was done in a Ministerial Decision issued on 20 January 1817. The decision, as translated by both Michel de Pierredon and the survivalists, said: "The Committee has decided, in spite of Ensign Lazarev's declaration that he received the stated Order according to the rules of the Russian Priory, that since this Order does not exist in Russia, neither Lazarev nor any recipient of these insignia may be allowed to wear them".
A first White Paper on the Order in Russia, published by the Sovereign Order, translates this key phrase as follows: "The [Ministerial] Committee decided that although Ensign Lazarev stated that he had received the cited Order in accordance with the rules of the Russian Priory, since this latter no longer exists in Russia, neither Lazarev nor anyone else who may receive it (in the future) may wear it."
In Toumanoff and Sherbovitz's "The Order of Malta and the Russian Empire" and a second White Paper issued by the Sovereign Order, the key phrase becomes: "The Committee decided that, although Ensign Lazarev states he received the mentioned Order according to the rules of the Russian Priory, nevertheless since this latter does not exist in Russia, Lazarev and all others who currently are receiving the Order are forbidden to wear it".
It is impossible in Russian to confuse the terms not and no longer. Unable to maintain its first translation, the Sovereign Order had to adopt the second one, substituting not for no longer. The Pierredon and survivalists' version is also more accurate than the Toumanoff and Shebovitz translation in making clear what it was that had ceased to exist in Russia, which was the "stated Order," that is the Sovereign Order, rather than the Order understood as the Russian Grand Priories. The versions used by Toumanoff and Shebovitz and in the White Paper tend to make one believe that what does not exist or no longer exists in Russia are the Russian priories, leaving the reader to infer that these were abolished even though the 1810 and 1811 decrees make no mention of their being abolished.
Toumanoff widened the issue by maintaining that insignia of the Order worn by Russian emperors and other members of the Imperial family, including the late pretender to the Imperial Throne, Grand Duke Wladimir Kyrillovich, were insignia of the Sovereign Order. Indeed, documents in the Order's archives in Rome show that after 1810 while there were no further admissions to the Russian Catholic Grand Priory, the Sovereign Order continued to receive non-Catholics in Russia as knights up to 1819 and Catholics up to the end of the Russian Empire as Knights of Honor and Devotion, something that would necessarily have involved obtaining Imperial consent.
For Toumanoff this means that the Russian Priories no longer existed in any form and that the only Russians who held titles and crosses of St. John owed them to the Sovereign Order. Muraise declares Toumanoff's position totally erroneous.
Michel de Pierredon believes the 1810 ukase was not the means of suppressing the Russian priories but of their final spoliation. The 1817 Ministerial Decision, on the other hand, assumed that the Russian priories had been abolished by a previous Ukase and that the dignities that went with them were also abolished on the death of those holding them. While efforts have been made, notably by the Revd. Father M.J.Rouet de Journel, to find a decree stipulating the abolition of the priories, no such decree has ever been found. Michel de Pierredon bases his interpretation on two references which are posterior to the Lazarev affair.
One is a History of Russian Orders and Compendium of the Statutes of these Orders compiled by civil servants on the instructions of Count Vorontsov-Dachkat in 1871. This work, which is rare and difficult to find, is said to state that in 1817 the priories and their inherent dignities were abolished because the Order of St. John no longer existed in the Russian Empire. Other works published in Russia between 1810 and 1914 say the opposite. Michel de Pierredon also cites Malta and Russia: Annals of the Papal Order (sic) of Malta by Father Rouet de Journel in which the 1817 Ministerial Decision is said to have placed "a full stop to a situation stained with irregularity". But this is recognizing that a divorce had taken place, not proof that the priories had been suppressed.
Michel de Pierredon recognizes elsewhere that the Tsars very occasionally authorized certain Russian nobles to accept titles of "hereditary commander" in the Order and does not contest references in Russian Imperial Court Almanachs, the Almanach de Gotha and Russian military lists of 1867, 1885, and 1913/14. Michel de Pierredon regards these as individual concessions by the Tsars that cannot be taken as proof of the corporate survival of the Russian Orthodox Grand Priory. There were more such concessions than he appears to realize.
Toumanoff and Sherbovitz-Wetzor, commenting on writings of Michel de Pierredon, find a weak point in his argument, This is the failure to find any decree that actually abolishes the priories and the dignities they conferred. The two professed knights show that the 1810 and 1811 decrees suppressed the priories and their dignities de facto but not de jure. Paradoxically in apparent contradiction to their position, that the Order did not survive in Russia, they cite the persistence of titular priories which disappeared substantively after their spoliation in 1798 in the wake of the Order's loss of Malta, and of others, like England, Ireland, Dacia (Denmark), and Armenia which had disappeared for all practical purposes long before 1798. As they point out, the titles attached to vanished entities continued to be conferred such as those of the Bailiffs of Capsis, Negroponte, Morea and Acre. This showed that titles could persist honorifically in spite of the disappearance of the assets that had supported them.
Muraise points out that having shown the difference between family commanders and hereditary commanders(23) Toumanoff and Sherbovitz seem to forget that sixteen hereditary Grand Crosses, transmissible through the female line, and reserved for lay members of families of the highest nobility were created by Grand Masters of the Order between 1645 and 1780. (24) They also reject Michel de Pierredon's admission that certain titles of hereditary commander had indeed been recognized. They add that Lazarev's request to wear the insignia of the Order was rejected because he quoted in support regulations of the Russian Priory at a time when the Priory had become inexistant. Finding this reasoning unsatisfactory, Muraise asks ironically whether others who sought permission to wear the insignia were also turned down because they cited the same regulations.
The names found in court almanachs and military lists which mention honors of the Order, Toumanoff and Sherbovitz believe, are those of surviving members of the former Russian Priories or members of the Order of Malta proper. Moreover, many of the works which refer to the survival of the Priories are, in their opinion, not worthy of confidence. Still, as survivalists are quick to note, Toumanoff and Sherbovitz accept that on several occasions after 1815 the Tsars, particularly Alexander I in 1818 and Nicholas I in 1827, referred to their quality of Protector of the Order not only in Russia but of the Order of Malta as a whole.
Survivalists happily agree with Toumanoff and Sherbovitz that the 1810 ukase does not have the legal character of a confiscation, which does not mean that there had not been a de facto seizure of the Order's assets in Russia. As for the 1811 Senatorial Decree, it concerned the properties of hereditary commanderies and not their honorific titles as such. Neither decrees spelled out what was to become of the Order in Russia and the Order of Malta never asked the Russian Government to return the assets it seized, which suggests to survivalists that the Grand Magistracy believed the Order continued to exist in Russia but in some sort of limbo.
The Toumanoff and Sherbovitz translation of the 1817 Ministerial Decision appears tendentious. It implies that the Russian Priories had been suppressed. The translations used by Michel de Pierredon and the survivalists, on the other hand, prompts the conclusion that it was not the Russian Priories that were inexistent in the Russian Empire but the Order of Malta. How otherwise, Muraise asks, can one explain an interdiction on wearing the insignia of the Order of Malta later lifted by the Tsars? He draws a parallel between the situation in Russia and that in France between 1815 and 1825. King Louis XVIII, incensed by the rivalry between the Commission of French Langues(25) and the Grand Magistracy in Catania over the award of honors, forbade the wearing of any insignia of the Order unless awarded by a sovereign Grand Master. At the time, of course, there was no Grand Master, only a Lieutenant of the Grand Magistracy. Later, at the request of the French nobility, Louis reconsidered and permitted the wearing of the crosses issued by Catania, but only under the control of his Royal Chancery.
Muraise tells us that the Russian Court and Gotha almanachs reveal that the Tsar received members into the Russian Order after 1810, specifically in 1835, 1847, 1853, and 1856.(26) In the lists of the Imperial Court’s civil servants there appear patronymics followed with the mention, Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and from 1847 on, either the same mention or with the addition of Russian Priory. The Almanach de Gotha shows hereditary commanders in 1867, 1885, 1889, 1908, 1914, 1925, 1928, 1934 and 1940. These references indicate that the hereditary titles had been more or less faithfully transmitted from generation to generation and that between 1810 and 1916 the Tsars had created eighteen additional hereditary commanders in the Russian Grand Priory. A certificate issued in 1934 by the Chancery of Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich in exile confirmed that Tsar Nicholas II, by Imperial ukase dated 5 December 1916, had conferred on the father of a Frenchman, Baron Meunier-Surcouf, the title of hereditary commander of the Russian Grand Priory. Unfortunately this certificate also seems to confirm two French titles which were obviously not within the competence of the Grand Duke to confirm.
One of the works which Toumanoff and Sherbovitz dismiss as unworthy of confidence is C. de Magny, Recueil Historique des Ordres de Chevalerie, (Paris 1843.) De Magny mentions the existence of an independant Russian Grand Priory. In another dismissed work, J. F. Loumyer, Les Ordres de Chevalerie et Marques d'Honneur (Brussels, 1844), the author says there are two Russian Priories of the Order of Malta with their hereditary commanders, but that these Priories "do not maintain close relations" with Rome. Another rejected effort, J. B. Burke, Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour (London 1858) asserts that, "The two Priories keep the appearance and the form of the old constitution under the protection and patronage of the Emperor who is the Head of the Chapter. His relations with Rome are extremely loose". W. Maigne, Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Ordres de Chevalerie (Paris 1861) goes further. "In Russia," Maigne writes, "the institution maintains the appearance of its former organization and an independant Chapter votes on the candidates under the supreme direction of the Emperor". Some years later, L. de La Briere, a Knight of Malta, wrote in L'Ordre de Malte, le Passé, le Présent (Paris, 1897, p.232), lumped the Russian Priories with the Johanniterorden and the British Most Venerable Order of St.John as "bogus orders of Malta" but did not contest their existence. Finally, M. de Taube, a Russian Imperial senator and historian who emigrated to France after 1917, wrote in another work pooh-poohed by Toumanoff and Sherbovitz, "L'Empereur Paul Ier de Russie, Grand Maitre de l’Ordre de Malte" (Paris 1955), that "It goes without saying that the rumor initiated by an unknown ignoramus concerning the alleged suppression of this Grand Priory by Alexander I in 1810 is totally without foundation".
Muraise concludes by pointing out that documentary proof exists on the transmission of hereditary titles in the Russian Grand Priory, namely in the military service record of Prince A.V. Troubetzkoy. This document dated 1889 states: "In his quality of eldest son - Hereditary Commander of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the insignia of which he wears under the sovereign's authorization dated 19 October 1867..." This establishes that an authorization was granted in 1867 by Tsar Alexander II and confirmed by Alexander III in 1889, acts which imply the survival of the Order in Russia, but where are the actual documents?
Having shown that the Order did to some degree at least survive the measures taken against it by Alexander I, (although we have never seen any surviving imperial decree, act or patent appointing anyone between 1817 and 1917) Muraise continues to trace its evolution into the twentieth century. Here the thread gets thinner and to my mind completely disappears. Tsar Nicholas I, Alexander I's brother, acceded to the throne in 1825. Toumanoff says that "what an autocrat can do can be undone by another." Muraise believes that this is what happened under Nicholas I and that he reconstituted the Russian Orthodox Grand Priory, allegedly observing that, "For the first time I understand what my father (Paul I) had in mind". Among other things, Nicholas ordered the restoration of the Catholic and Orthodox chapels of the Vorontsov Palace, the former Russian headquarters of the Order. From 1852 on, he celebrated annually the transfer of the relics from Malta to St. Petersburg. He also accepted the title of Bailiff Grand Cross of the Order of Malta as did every Tsar thereafter.
Dr N. de Pouchkine was a member of the Russian Nobility Association in Brussels and of the Union of Hereditary Commanders and Knights of the Russian Grand Priory of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, founded in Paris in 1928. In 1962 he wrote to Harrison Smith, a Professor of History at the University of Maryland who was conducting research into the question of the survival of the Order in Russia. Pouchkine wrote that Alexander I, installed while Tsarevitch as Orthodox Grand Prior, issued instructions that his heirs were to look after the Grand Priory. This obligation, de Pouchkine wrote, was strictly followed by all the Russian sovereigns up to the late Emperor Nicholas II who, when Russia went to war with Germany in 1914, transferred to King Alfonso XIII of Spain his obligations to the Russian Grand Priory as well as other matters of State. There is no known proof that Nicholas II did any such thing and Harrison Smith conceded that "more research from private archives is still needed on the role of Alfonso XIII of Spain." It is surprising that he does not mention doing research in the Spanish archives, which are open to the public. Any such royal correspondence between the two monarchs would be available for scrutiny and confirmation.
In 1928, according to de Pouchkine, the King of Spain, relinquished his obligations toward the Russian Grand Priory of the Order of St. John in favor of Grand Duke Alexander Mihailovich as the senior member of the House of Romanoff. On this occasion whatever was required to insure the safeguarding of the rights of descendants of the dignitaries of the Order appointed hereditary commanders by Emperor Paul I was carried out, de Pouchkine asserted. Not only is there a lack of any documentary support for these assertions, but the reference to Grand Duke Alexander as head of the House of Romanoff is tendentious. Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich, who was living in France at the time, was acknowledged, if only informally, as the senior Romanoff and Head of the Imperial House by the Courts of Europe and a large part of the Russian nobility. However, another part, to which the members of the Union of Hereditary Commanders belonged, disliked Kyrill on two counts. He had displayed a fleeting support for the revolutionaries who ended the monarchy and later in exile, after the Bolsheviks murdered all intervening valid claimants to the throne, had declared himself Emperor.
Survivalists in America have also claimed that Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovitch, with the approval of Nicholas II, was Grand Master from 1913 to 1933 of an American Grand Priory founded in 1905. No documentary proof that Alexander held such a post or that such a priory existed has ever been found. Alexander's daughter, Princess Yousoupoff, said her father was indeed Grand Master of an American Priory but her brother Andrei Alexandrovich Romanovsky vehemently denied this. The apocryphal Orders of St. John which we have examined earlier all claim to descend from this American Priory. In this connection but at the risk of being repetitive, it is worth citing an exchange of correspondence between Crolian William Edelen, Grand Master of the American Priory and Dr. Harrison Smith, which appeared in my earlier paper on the Proliferation of Orders of St.John and which clearly shows that the story of the origin of the American Priory was made up out of whole cloth.