![[Flag of the St. John's Order]](../images/f/fr}stjbr.gif)
Last modified: 2010-11-13 by ivan sache
Keywords: saint john's order in brittany | ordre de saint-jean en bretagne | brittany | cross (black) | cross: maltese (white) |
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Flag of the Saint-John's Order in Brittany - Image by Ivan Sache, 13 November 2004
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The official name of the Order in France is Association des œuvres
sociales et hospitalières de l'ordre régulier de Saint-Jean de Terre
Sainte en Bretagne, registered on 24 May 2004. The former name of the
Order was Oeuvres sociales et hospitalières de l'ordre de Saint-Jean
de Jérusalem en Bretagne.
This Order is one of the orders that succeeded the Order of Malta
after its expelling from Malta by Bonaparte on 12 June 1798. In
November 1798, Tsar of Russia Paul I was elected Grand Master of the
Order and founded the Grand Orthodox Priory of Russia for the Orthodox
and Protestant knights. In 1805, Pope Pius VII, influenced by Napoléon
I, took the control of the Italian priories and founded the Papal Order
of Malta, strictly Roman Catholic. This Order was allowed to elect its
Grand Master by Pope Leon XIII in 1879. The links between the Papal
Order of Malta, which did not exist in Russia, and the oecumenical
Russian branch of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem were completely
suppressed.
In 1917, the Russian Revolution suppressed the Russian Order, which was
relocated in the USA and later in France. The Order is organized in
Priories; the French Priory was founded in 1959, whereas the Breton
Priory was founded in 1967, along with the Danish Priory.
In 1999, the Order of Malta sued the Order of St. John, which changed
its name to Regular Order of St. John in Holy Land - of the Russian
tradition of the Christian Oecumenical Hospitalers Knights, and adopted
a specific emblem, a white eight-pointed Greek cross, formerly used by
the Order in Holy Land and Rhodes.
Source: Order website (website no longer online)
Ivan Sache, 13 November 2004
The Tro Breizh (lit., Tour of Brittany) was the famous Breton
pilgrimage, which linked the seven cathedrals showing the relics of the
seven founding saints of Brittany: St. Samson in Dol-de-Bretagne, St.
Patern in Vannes, St. Corentin in Quimper, St. Pol-Aurélien in St. Pol-de-Léon, St. Tugdual in Tréguier, St. Brieuc in St. Brieuc and St.
Malo in St. Malo. It took the pilgrims more than a month to complete
the Tour, whose length was about 600 km.
In 1994, the Breton association Les Chemins du Tro Breizh decided to
recreate the pilgrimage and has organized one one-week stage per year,
so that the Tour could be completed in seven years. The first complete
Tour ended in Quimper in 2000.
The pilgrimage is organized by Les Chemins du Tro Breizh with the
help of various scouts' organization, the Red Cross, and the Knights of
the St. John's Order in Brittany (Ordre de Saint-Jean en Bretagne)
freely provide the pilgrims with water all along the Tour.
A photography on the association's website (page no longer online) shows such a water resupply under a tree to which a flag hangs, most probably the flag of the Order.
The flag is vertical, white with a black off-centred cross (for
Brittany) and a white Maltese cross placed in the middle of the black
cross.
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 13 November 2004
