THE SACRED ANGELIC IMPERIAL CONSTANTINIAN

ORDER OF SAINT GEORGE

The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (Italian:Sacro Militare Ordine Costantiniano di San Giorgio;Spanish: Sagrada Orden Militar Constantiniana de San Jorge), also historically referred to as the Imperial Constantinian Order of Saint George and the Order of the Constantinian Angelic Knights of Saint George, is adynastic orderof knighthood of theHouse of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.Currently, thegrand magistryof the order is disputed among the two claimants to the headship of the formerly reigning House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as heirs of theHouse of Farnese, namely Prince Pedro and Prince Carlo. The order was one of the rare orders confirmed as a religious-military order in the papal bull Militantis Ecclesiaein 1718, owing to a notable success in liberating Christians in thePeloponnese. Together with theSovereign Military Order of Malta, it is one of a small number of Catholic orders that still have this status today. It is not anorder of chivalry under the patronage of the Holy See, but its membership is restricted to practising Catholics.

Although the order is alleged to have been founded in its original form by Constantine the Greatin Antiquity and then restored under later Byzantine emperors, the actual origin of the order can be traced to the 16th century, when it was founded by an Albanian noble family named Angelo Flavio Comneno. This family, extinct in 1698, claimed to be connected to the Byzantine Komnenos and Angelos dynasties, but such a direct familial connection was referred to several other branches; that lineage does, however, descend from a marriage into the Arianiti family that has several descents from past Byzantine imperial families. Chivalric orders were completely unknown in the Byzantine world, so much of the all eged history of the order was invented much later. Outside the generally recognized line of grand masters from its origin in the 16th century to the present day, there have been many people claiming to be grand masters who have been forgers and title-seekers hoping to gain support for invented lines of descent from ancient and medieval nobility.

The legendary origins of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George trace its foundation to an apocryphal order founded by Constantine the Great. Although it has sometimes been held that the order was restored/created by the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos, any claimed connection between chivalric orders and the Byzantine Empire are pure fantasy, as chivalric orders in the modern Western sense were completely unknown in the Byzantine world. At best, any connection to some ancient group would be excessively indirect and abstracted.

The order was actually claimed by Albanian nobles of the Angelo Flavio Comneno family branch (only one of many connected to the Byzantine houses of Angelos and Komnenos) in the 16th century, notably Andrea Angelo Flavio Comneno, and his brother Paolo Angelo Flavio Comneno, in 1545. In 1545, the brothers Andrea and Paolo were acknowledged as descendants of the Angeloi emperors (a claim seen as doubtful today) by Pope Paul III, this recognition being in part due to their familial connections with the Medici, Orsini, del Balzo and Riargo families. The brothers were also guaranteed the right to inherit territory in the former Byzantine Empire, should such territory be recovered from the Ottomans. Their family remained grand masters of the order until 1698 when Giovanni Andrea II, who also claimed the titles of "Prince of Macedonia", "Duke of Thessaly" and "Count of Drivasto, Durazzo etc." as the last male member of his family, transferred the grand mastership of the order to Francesco Farnese, the duke of Parma.

Outside the generally recognized line of grand masters from its origin in the 17th century to the present day, there have been various claims to the title of grand master by imposters hoping to gain support for invented lines of descent from various Byzantine dynasties.