-Caveat Lector-
The Order today
The Teutonic Order has been in existence for over 800 years. As of 2000 there
were some 1,090 members. Of these, 90 are brothers (priests and lay
brothers), 6 are Oblaten, 240 are sisters, and 720 are Familiaren (familiars
i.e. lay members) including eight Ehrenritter (Honorary Knights).
The Order reveres the Blessed Virgin, Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia and Saint
George as its patrons.
The Brothers, Sisters and Familiars jointly perform the work of the Order.
This common activity - unique in the Catholic Church - exists on various
levels:
• On the spiritual plane:
Common prayer, celebration of religious festivals, seminars and
contemplation.
• In pastoral care:
Care of a large number of parishes in five Central European countries,
and pastoral activities in hospitals, kindergartens, facilities for the
handicapped and many other institutions.
• In the pursuit of knowledge:
Publication of a large body of documentation on the place of the
Teutonic Order in 800 years of European history; organization of
international conferences and symposia; and maintenance of an archive. The
Archivist is P. Dr. Bernhard Demel.
Please send your inquiry directly to the archivist in form of an
official writing into German language and dont't forget your address.
Zentralarchiv des Deutschen Ordens (DOZA)
P. Dr. Bernhard Demel
Singerstrasse 7/3
A-1010 Vienna
Austria/Europe
• In art conservation:
Organization of exhibitions, and custodianship of a number of museums
including the Deutsch-Ordens-Museum (Museum of the Teutonic Order) and the
Schatzkammer des Deutschen Ordens (Treasury of the Order of Teutonic Knights)
in Vienna.
• In social and charity work:
Social and charity projects - often involving the deployment of considerable
human and material resources - are implemented under the supervision of
members of the Order, who may be sisters, priests or familiars. Idealistic
helpers from outside the Order are also invited to participate in projects of
this kind.
===
The chequered past of the Teutonic Order reflects virtually every major
development in over 800 years of European history. It begins in the high
Middle Ages, at the time of the third Crusade, and encompasses an independent
monastic state and an influential position in the Holy Roman Empire, near
collapse in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars followed by a comprehensive
reform in the 19th century, and another resurgence in the present day.
Origins in the Holy Land
The Teutonic Order was founded by Hanseatic knights hospitaler in the Holy
Land, during the Third Crusade. It was established in 1190 as a hospital
order, and its initial purpose was to care for crusaders who were injured or
otherwise in need of assistance.
Eight years later, following the example of other crusaders' organizations,
it was transformed from a hospital into a knightly order, and ceremonially
confirmed as such by Pope Innocent III. It was also granted a so-called
"exemption", freeing it from subordination to the local bishop and making it
directly answerable to the Pope. This special position has continued down to
today, and is of great significance for the Order's work.
Rapid growth
Following the transformation into a military order growth was rapid, and
during the 13th century each year saw the foundation of several Kommenden
(commendams). By 1300 the Order numbered some 300 commendams.
Owing to the fast spread of the Order the Grand Master appointed local
commanders - so-called Landmeister (Provincial Masters) - in some provinces.
The Provincial Master for Germany later received the title of Deutschmeister
(Teutonic Master) that continues to exist today. The older commendams owe
their existence to pious crusaders who endowed it with money, lands, manors,
churches, monasteries, convents and hospitals. Popes, emperors, bishops,
temporal princes, numerous nobles and burghers were among the benefactors.
===
Emergence of a monastic state
One of the most important periods in the history of the Teutonic Order began
in about 1224. The Christian duke, Conrad of Mazovia, appealed to the Grand
Master Hermann von Salza for assistance against the warlike Prussians, who
had periodically fought Poland, Pommerania and Mazovia for centuries, and
destroying many villages, churches and monasteries. Pope and the Emperor
urged the Teutonic Order to intervene and after Conrad s renunciation over
the sovereignty on the land to be conquered, the Order was promised the
control of Courland and Livonia as a reward in the event of victory.
After a series of wars after 1230, the Teutonic Knights ultimately succeeded
in subduing the Prussians. They conquered what was still in part an
uninhabited wilderness. In the following centuries the land was cultivated,
and numerous towns and castles such as Danzig (Gdansk), Thorn (Torún), Kulm
and Königsberg (Kaliningrad) were built or expanded. This territory, spanning
parts of modern Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, northern Poland and Russia,
became an independent state controlled by the Teutonic Knights, and remained
so until the early 16th century.
The decline of knighthood
A number of knightly orders dissolved themselves in the 14th and 15th
centuries. Already, in the 13th century two orders had been merged with the
Teutonic Order (the Dobriner and the Brothers of the Sword). The Teutonic
Order had established its own state, and had a firm foothold in almost every
country of Europe. However, the monastic state was not spared warfare. After
the Battle of Tannenberg (1410) the Teutonic Order lost part of its territory
and was so weakened that in 1466 the country was partitioned and the west
ceded to the King of Poland.
The Order moved its residence to Königsberg in the north of the country.
After a further war, the Grand Master, Albrecht von Brandenburg, proclaimed
his allegiance to the King of Poland, who permitted him to rule the territory
as a secular dukedom. In 1525 Albrecht relinquished the Order's cloak and his
office as Grand Master, and became the first Duke of Brandenburg, the future
Prussia. The vacant leadership of the Order was assumed by the
Deutschmeister, Walter von Cronberg, who moved its residence to Mergentheim
and took the title of Hoch- und Deutschmeister (Grand and Teutonic Master).
===
A time of severe trials
The 16th century was the end of an era for the Order. Not only was the
Prussian monastic state lost but the Order had to withdraw from other
provinces, too. The Reformation meant that some of the Order's possessions
came under the rule of Protestant princes. Some knights and brothers adopted
the new confession, and soon there were Lutheran and Calvinist members of the
Teutonic Order.
Owing to the high esteem in which the Order continued to be held, some
knights who had converted to the new teachings wished to remain members, and
did not see their new creed as a hindrance. The unique situation thus arose
whereby knights and priests of three confessions served under a Catholic
superior, the Grand Master. This phase in the history of the Order is known
as the triconfessional period.
>From the Turkish wars to Napoleon
In the 17th and 18th centuries the power and resources of the Teutonic Order
were largely devoted to assisting the imperial forces in the struggle against
the Turks. The Order regularly provided contingents of between 500 and 1,000
men.
After the Turkish wars, in the second half of the 18th century, the purely
secular tasks of the knightly orders assumed increasing importance. The
Teutonic Order, too, turned its attention to the administration of its
possessions, and surrounded itself with a baroque splendour that found
expression in a wave of palace building, and the commanderies transformed
into lordly estates. The priests in the Order devoted themselves to pastoral
work, and the administration of churches and parishes.
The rise of Napoleon brought troubled times for the Order. In the French
controlled areas it was prohibited, and its possessions ceded to the duchies
in whose territory they were. Only in the Austrian Empire did the Teutonic
Order continue to exist. This political diktat put an end to
triconfessionalism, and the Order again became purely Catholic. In 1839
Emperor Franz and his Chancellor Metternich gave the Order a new legal basis,
and it adopted new statutes. For the next eight decades it was called the
Deutscher Ritterorden (Teutonic Order of Knights), and the Grand Masters were
Habsburg Archdukes.
===
Refoundation of the Sisters' Institute
Under Grand Master Archduke Maximilian, the priest and theology professor
Peter Rigler set about a fundamental reform of the Order and re-established
the Sisters' Institute. Within only a few years the congregation of sisters,
which was exceptionally modern and dynamic for its day, entered a period of
rapid expansion. By 1900 there were over 1,000 sisters of the Teutonic Order,
attached to more than 60 institutions including hospitals, schools and
kindergartens, and the Order's parishes. At this point there were also some
1,000 knights, familiars and priests of the Order.
Following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the confused political
situation, and the fragmentation of the Order's properties into what were now
six different countries, led Grand Master Archduke Eugen to transform the
Order from a knightly into religious order. Since 1923 the Grand Master has
always been a priest. Today, the Order consists of three branches - priests,
sisters and lay members (the so-called familiars).
====
Obstruction of the Order's work
In 1938 the National Socialist regime prohibited the Order in Austria, and
placed its property under the administration of the German Reich (the
Austrian property was restituted by the Republic of Austria in 1947). In 1939
the Teutonic Order was abolished also in the Sudetenland (later
Czechoslovakia), its property confiscated and the brothers and sisters
expelled from their parishes and convents. This system of confiscation and
expulsion practiced by the Nazis, was also executed by the communist
government in 1946, the sisters and priests, who had returned in 1945, were
again expelled and the Order's property was again confiscated. This situation
still exists today, with only one exception (the sisters' convent in
Opava-Troppau).
Both the Teutonic Order itself and many of its members suffered severe
persecution. Some members paid with their lives for their loyalty to the
Order. It is difficult to explain in a few words why this action was taken
against the Order. Suffice it to say that the reasons for the ban included
the Order's principles, such as the vow "to defend the Christian faith
against all the enemies of Christendom and the Church", and the pledge of
"unconditional loyalty to the Pope". Another reason was the fact that -
naturally against the will of the Order - the National Socialists misused
some elements of its past for the distorted version of history they employed
in their propaganda. There was nothing that the prohibited and persecuted
Order could do to prevent this usurpation, and even today it is sometimes
compelled to protest against the misinterpretation of its symbols (e.g. the
800-year-old cross) and the falsification of aspects of its history.
Obstruction in the former eastern bloc
When the communists took power after the Second World War in the former
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, they effectively rubber-stamped the National
Socialist confiscations, and most of the Order's property was immediately
returned to state administration, while the schools, monasteries and convents
were dissolved or handed over to the Communist Party. Large numbers of
priests, sisters and familiars were dragged off to the communist prisons and
camps. In the late 1940s most of the Order's members living in the CSSR fled
to the Federal Republic of Germany, where they founded new settlements of the
Teutonic Order at abandoned Church estates.
===
New challenges for the Teutonic Order
Only after the "velvet revolution" of the late autumn of 1989 in the former
Czechoslovakia, and the independence of Slovenia, was it possible for the
Teutonic Order to re-establish close contact with surviving members in these
countries. Within months of the rebirth of the Order in the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Slovenia a strong influx of new members was under way. In order
to avoid a reputation for merely "demanding the return of property", the
leadership of the Order decided to take a big risk in the shape of the
construction of a new convent in the small Slovakian town of Topolcany. This
was completed in only two years, and the consecration of the building in
August 1993 attracted great public interest. The convent has since become an
integral part of life in Topolcany. It houses kindergarten groups, Sunday
schools, language and computer courses, and many other forms of educational
and pastoral activity.
The early 'nineties also saw a resumption of pastoral work in some of the
Order's 12 parishes in Slovenia and the parishes in the Czech Republic, and
of the activities of the Teutonic Order's nuns in Opava.
In a private audience on February 11th, 1991, marking the 800th anniversary
of the Order's foundation, Pope John Paul II urged members to continue their
devoted commitment to the service of God and those in need.
Today, the seat of the Grand Master, the museum (treasury) of the Teutonic
Order, the central archive and the Grand Master's Office are all at the
Deutsch-Ordens-Haus in Vienna. This is the heart of a small but highly active
order, which is now at work in many areas of Central Europe.
The Teutonic Order has now been in uninterrupted existence, with an
essentially unchanged identity, for over 800 years.
Young men wishing to take holy orders, young women who feel a calling to
become nuns, and Catholics who would like to fight for Christianity as
members of the Teutonic Order are cordially invited to assist in its work.
====
The Headquarters of the Order
The House of the Teutonic Order (an 18th century view) [22 k] Today, the
Deutsch-Ordens-Haus (House of the Teutonic Order) in Vienna houses the Church
of Saint Elisabeth, the Office of the Grand Master, the archives and library,
and the Treasury of the Order.
St. Elisabeth, the Church of the Teutonic Order
A church already stood on the site of the present House of the Teutonic Order
in Vienna at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. As a result of two
fires, only the spire of this church is left standing today. The present
church was finished in 1395 and it was consecrated to St. Elisabeth of
Thuringia. The House of the Teutonic Order was lightly renovated in the
baroque style between 1725 and 1735. The church was also altered at this time
and can now be said to represent a harmonious blend of the gothic and baroque
styles. Inside, the gothic triptych and the tombstones of the Teutonic
knights are of particular note.
Archives and Library
Hundreds of crates of records from all the provinces of the Order were sent
to Vienna in the decades after it became the new seat of the Grand Master in
1809. Happily for today's researchers, the records of the provincial leader
of Moravia and Silesia were also sent to Vienna, in 1918. They now represent
much sought after sources for researchers from Eastern Europe, especially
since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In recent years, the inventory of documents (including imperial, royal and
papal deeds and bulls) have been catalogued in accordance with modern
academic criteria. The archives contain 44 different categories of documents
(so-called departments). The archives of the Teutonic Knights also contain a
collection of about 1,000 old seals, treatises, inventories and catalogues.
The library of the Teutonic Order in Vienna contains some 10,000 volumes at
present. These include important works of reference for users of the library,
numerous titles devoted to the history of the Order, as well as its own
academic publications. The library bookcases are fine joinery work: they are
the prentice work of Grand Master Archduke Eugen of Austria. Ever since the
era of Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian I, every archduke has had to learn a craft
and every archduchess has had to produce some handiwork and delicate
embroidery (the embroidered stoles and chasubles of the order represent
outstanding examples of this).
====
The Organizational structure of the Order
In the period following the founding of the Order as a fraternity of
hospitalers in 1190 and up to its papal confirmation as a knightly order in
1199, the leaders of the community did not have uniform titles, although there
are already documentary references to the title of Magister can at this time.
Ever since 1216, when Hermann von Salza (1209-1239) assumed the title
Magister Hospitalis (later also with the additional epithet of domus) Sanctae
Mariae Alemannorum (later almost exclusively Sanctae Mariae Theutonicorum)
Jerusolimitani, or "Master of the Hospital of Saint Mary of the Teutons in
Jerusalem", this has been the official title of the head of the Order.
After the loss of the Prussian provinces of the Order in 1525, Deutschmeister
Walter von Cronberg (1526-1543) was entrusted by Emperor Charles V with the
Grand Masterdom on December 6th, 1527. This provisional measure was later
sanctioned according to the law of the Order by the Grand Chapter in 1529.
The rights and privileges granted to the head of the Order were sanctioned
under imperial law by Charles V and under canon law by the papal envoy,
Lorenzo Campeggio, on August 21st, 1530.
>From 1530-1834 the head of the Order bore the title Hoch- und Deutschmeister
(Grand and Teutonic Master) or Supremus Magister. His official title was
"Administrator of the Grand Masterdom in Prussia, Master of the Teutonic
Order in German and Foreign Lands".
The Teutonic Order was known officially as the "Order of Teutonic Knights"
between 1834-1929, and was presided over by a "Grand and Teutonic Master".
When the knights were transformed into a spiritual order in 1929, they
assumed the old name "Teutonic Order" once more, and the head of the Order
was given the title "Grand Master" (or "Supremus Magister" in Latin).
The current Grand Master is Abbot Dr. Bruno Platter O.T. (Ordo Teutonicorum)
who was elected 65th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in August 2000.
Please click here to enter the organization chart of the Teutonic Order (in
German).
====
The Teutonic Order and its familiars
Helping, defending and healing: these three words sum up the wide-ranging
mission of the 800-year-old Church institution entitled the Order of the
"Brothers and Sisters of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Teutons in
Jerusalem", and otherwise known as the Teutonic Order or "Ordo Teutonicus"
(O.T.)
The origins of the Institute of Familiars
In order to "strengthen its human and material resources, and to enable the
Order to help more people" (to quote the translation of Chapter 32 of the
Rules of the Order, dating from 1244), since its early days the Teutonic
Order has incorporated layman as helpers and benefactors. Unlike the ordained
members of the Order, these "familiars" do not take monastic vows. They live
as lay members or secular priests outside the monastic community but remain
in close touch and constant cooperation with the Order as a whole. During an
earlier period in the Order's history the familiars were called Marianer
(Marians), and in line with this title the Institute of Familiars is open to
women.
The role of the familiars in the Order
Today, the Teutonic Order consists of the priestly brothers, from among whose
ranks the Grand Master is elected, the sisters and the familiars, who include
the Honorary Knights. The Institute of Familiars, to which both laymen and
priests belong, supports the Order in all its activities, and seeks to
attract public support for its good works by publicizing them in the media
and seeking support for them in public and cultural life.
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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