de Quelen Jacques-Youenn, Precis of history and spirituality of the OSJ

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[...] John of Jerusalem". Paul I died by assassination during the night of 11th to 12th March 1801. Four days later, the new Emperor, Alexander continued the Protectorate of the Order while keeping his dignity of Grand Prior of the Non-Roman Catholic Russian Grand Priory. He would organize how to make elected a Grand Master by a Chapter General "in conformity with the ancient Statutes", that is to say by the representatives of all the Brother-Knights, and without any other guarantee. [...]

[...] and ended with a lot of gratefulness and compliments. The truth, are we told, was that it . supremely 51 displeased him to have to serve under a Sicilian Lieutenant General who confessed himself that he knew nothing about the sea-racing job and that nobody on his vessel did know something about it ! . Title without competence is no worth ! And, adds the chronicler, noble heart was never overjoyed to be put under the leadership of a Chief judged as incapable Eventually we cannot leave out without mentioning among other famous sailors, the Chevalier de Grasse and also the Bailiff de Suffren, promoted Grand Admiral by King Louis XVI. [...]

[...] John, by the eight points of the "Cross of the Beatitudes", "Cross of Amalfi" said "St. John's Cross", sometimes called also "Malta Cross" according to the model dated from the stay of the Order in that Island from the 16th to the 18th century. They summarize the happiness to which we are called. A happiness that is present, that is lived and daily realized by the way of their constant meditation and search for. Here, we are in the very heart of the Regular Order of St. John's spirituality. [...]

[...] An exemption from religious vows, dated 1st June 1798, would follow, to ensure the validity of this appointment. This 1797 Convention marked the moment when the Order , led by the logic of "secularism" that reigns in Malta since the beginning of the 18th century, sees the equilibrium of its "persona mixta" (canonically religious on one side, and temporal on the other side), swing to the temporal, and quickly become political. A final Pontifical Bull (Pastoralium nobis, 10th June 1779, of Pope Pius VI) confirmed the total independence of the Sovereign Order of St. [...]

[...] Even the wounded Knights came bravely out of the Infirmary : "they preferred to go and meet death, and find her on the breach, instead of waiting for her in their beds." But, on 13th September, the arrival of the "grand secours" with 8,000 men, including 300 French Knights and among them 50 Protestants, sent by the Viceroy of Sicily, provoked the hasty departure of the Turks. This siege lasted four months. There, more than 260 Knights sacrificed their lives. Up to 8,000 men, soldiers or inhabitants perished during the siege. The Turks lost 30,000 of their people there ! [...]