Welcome
We welcome your interest in our unique organisation and invite you to learn more about us.
The Knights and Dames, Serving Sisters and Serving Brothers of the Priory of Victoria, Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Knights Hospitaller Australasia, with the Commanderies of Geelong and Ballarat, Melbourne Metro Group, Mornington Peninsula Gippsland Group and members in Indonesia and Sydney welcome you to our website.
Our ecumenical Christian Order is descended from the Knights Hospitaller, founded by the Blessed Gerard who established a hospice in Jerusalem in the early 11th Century. The Hospitaller Order began as a hospice for pilgrims and the local population and served people of all faiths. It remains among the oldest and most enduring Orders of chivalry in the world. The founders of the Order of Saint John assigned their descendants the valiant task to preserve the Christian faith and to serve the sick and the poor, best summarized in the Order’s nearly 1000-year-old motto: Pro Fide, Pro Utilitate Hominum (For Faith, For Service to Humanity). As members of the Order, we take that challenge very seriously. Today, modern day Knights and Dames, Serving Sisters and Serving Brothers are involved in providing direct, life changing interventions and aid to people in their own communities and in countries torn apart by war, disease or devastating natural disasters.
There is an increasing interest in the extraordinary work that the Order has quietly achieved over the past 1,000 years and which it continues to do throughout the world. Unlike many organisations and similar Orders, our numbers continue to grow, as each generation inspires others to become custodians of this unique Hospitaller role. We do this by acknowledging the service a person has contributed in the past. The accolade of Knight or Dame of Honour, Serving Sisters and Serving Brothers is awarded to those very few who take their solemn vow of knighthood seriously. To this end, you are invited to learn more about our work as we honour outstanding people who consider themselves to be ordinary, but by their very actions mark them as being extraordinary.
Membership is by invitation only.
Barbara H. Abley AM GCSJ FACN
Prior
Priory of Victoria
Grand Priory of Australasia
