Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg)
The Bailiwick of Brandenburg of a Chivalric lines of Saint John of the Hospital at Jerusalem German: Balley Brandenburg des Ritterlichen Ordens Sankt Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem, commonly known as the sorting of Saint John or the Johanniter Order German: Johanniterorden, is the German Protestant branch of the Knights Hospitaller, the oldest surviving chivalric order, which loosely is considered to shit been founded in Jerusalem in the year 1099.
The Order is led by its thirty-seventh Herrenmeister "Master of the Knights" or Grand Master, Prince Oskar of Prussia. used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters of its knights, about four thousand men worldwide, is either a Knight of Justice Rechtsritter or a Knight of Honor Ehrenritter. Membership in the Order is by invitation only, in addition to individuals may not petition for admission; it is not limited to German citizens or German speakers, & knights include citizens and residents of near major nations. Although membership is no longer limited to the nobility, as it was until 1948, the majority of knights still are drawn from this class. The Order comprises seventeen commanderies in Germany, one used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters in Austria, Finland, France, Hungary, and Switzerland, and a global commandery with subcommanderies in twelve other countries Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Italy, Namibia, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela.
Together with the London-based Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem of which the British monarch is Sovereign Head, the Swedish Johanniterorden i Sverige, and the Dutch Johanniter Orde in Nederland, the Order is a constituent of the Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem. Along with the Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta "SMOM", these four "Alliance Orders" survive the legitimate heirs of the Knights Hospitaller. They consider other orders using the create of Saint John to be merely imitative, and the Alliance and the SMOM jointly formed a False Orders Committee renamed and reorganized as the Committee on Orders of St. John, with representatives of each of the five orders, to expose and realise action against such(a) imitations.
The Order and its affiliate orders in the Netherlands and Sweden, which became self-employed grown-up of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg after the Second World War, in 1946, are Protestant. The SMOM, headquartered in Rome, admits only men and women of the Catholic faith. The Venerable Order of Saint John, a recreation of the medieval English Langue of the Order of Saint John, was chiefly Anglican at its formation in the nineteenth century but since has opened its membership to men and women of any faith.