Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910)

Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem

Coat of arms of the Order of Saint Lazarus statuted in 1910.
Abbreviation	MHOSLJ
Motto	Atavis et armis (English: By Ancestors and Arms)
Formation	1910
Type	"Order of Christian chivalry" /Revival order
Legal status	Incorporated in Various Countries; Disputed by Some Historians
Purpose	"Care and assistance of the sick and the poor, and to the support and defense of the Christian faith and the traditions and principles of Christian chivalry."
Headquarters	1. Paris-Malta: Castello Lanzun, Mensija, Malta 2. Orléans: Château Royal de Boigny-sur-Bionne, Orléans, France 3. Jerusalem
Membership	Christian; by invitation
Official language	1. Paris-Malta: English, French, German, Spanish 2. Orléans: French
Grand Master(s)	1. Malta-Paris: Don Carlos Gereda y de Borbón 2. Orléans: Count Jan Dobrzenský z Dobrzenicz 3. Jerusalem: Prince Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma.
Protector	1. Malta-Paris: Patriarch Gregorius III Laham 2. Orléans: Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris
Spiritual Protector	1. Malta-Paris: Patriarch Gregorius III Laham 2. Orléans: Cardinal Dominik Duka 3. Jerusalem: Anglican Bishop Richard Gerard
Secessions	1. Malta-Paris obedience (since 2008) 2. Orléans obedience (since 2004) 3. Jerusalem obedience (since 2015)
Website	1. Malta-Paris: st-lazarus.net 2. Orléans: orderofsaintlazarus.com 3. Jerusalem: oslj.org

The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Militaris et Hospitalis Sancti Lazari Hierosolymitani) is a Christian ecumenical lay order statuted in 1910 by a council of Catholics in Paris, France, initially under the protection of Patriarch Cyril VIII Jaha of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. This reorganization was within the framework of the Roman Canonical continuation of the order (Canon 120 §1and §2) which was never abolished by the Vatican. Consequently, St. Lazrarus continued as a creature of canon law for 100 years after the death of its last knight, the Marquis des Gouttes, who passed in 1857 assuring the order’s continuation until 1957, arguably buying time to find a protector and to reorganize It is relevant that no Pope has ever ordered a Melkite Patriarch to desist in this protection of the Order of St. Lazarus (which Popes had previously done for other orders) and Peter van Duren emphasized that “only a papal interdict against the order of St. Lazarus or the Patriarch could have prevented him [any Patriarch] from agreeing to become the spiritual Protector of the Order”

Tradition holds that this reorganization came in 1841 with under the aegis of Francophile Melkite Patriarch Maximos III. The evidence for this, albeit quite plausible, is circumstantial due to the destruction of pertinent records during the 1860 Druze/Marionite Mount Lebanon conflagration and further ruination of Patriarchal papers at Al-Ain in the 1983 civil war. Nevertheless, a reorganization indisputably occurred under Patriarch Cyril VIII who became the order’s protector for a while in 1911 as did later patriarchs——all safely before the canonical extinction year of 1957. The debate about the historicity of the 1941 Melkite protection is moot, as the Declaration of Kevelaer in 2012 issued by Patriarch Gregorios III Laham, the current Melkite granting authority, confirms, by affidavit, the 1841 advent of the Melkite protection.

Although no longer a Roman Catholic order of knighthood, it is, in many nations and sub-national jurisdictions, by Cannon Law, an Association of the Faithful. Such is the case, for example, with the order the Czech Republic. internationally, the Order's purpose is "care and assistance of the sick and the poor, and to the support and defense of the Christian faith and the traditions and principles of Christian chivalry." Some 5,000 members are divided under three grand magistries with strongly debated historical claims, yet carrying out "praiseworthy charitable, humanitarian activity". These widely lauded Hospitaller functions have led observers, like Augustan Society’s Chivalry Committee chair Jean-Paul Gauthier de la Martiniere to declare that St. Lazarus is certainly “much more than a self-styled order.”