Historical Footnotes "Relics of the Hospitallers"

St. John the Baptist died some 2000 years ago. His arm, smuggled from the Levant some time after his death ended up in Constantinople, where it eventually fell into the hands of the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks. There it was kept and revered.

However, after the Hospitallers on Rhodes assisted the Sultan Bayezed II in securing his throne he, knowing the importance of St. John the Baptist to the Order, gave them the relic as thanks. The Sultan and the Crusading Order maintained a good working relationship for his lifetime. The relic became a center piece of the relics of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Rhodes, their stronghold. After its conquest the Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent, impressed with the Order's dedication during the reduction of Rhodes, allowed them to keep the hand.

From Rhodes it went to Malta where it stayed until the French, under Napoleon ousted them. The Order, with its relics, fled to St. Petersburg and the protection of the Tsar Paul I. There the relics remained for 120 years, along with the shadow of greatness the Crusading Order had been.

When the Russian Revolution began the relics were smuggled out of the country to Denmark. From Denmark they later were given to the King of Serbia, who in the end, facing his own demise, gave them to a holy monastery in the tiny country of Mentengro at the Monastery of Cetinje.

Thus the arm of St. John sat for a hundred years, and there it remains.