Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George

The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (SMOCG), also historically referred to as the Imperial Constantinian Order of Saint George and the Order of the Constantinian Angelic Knights of Saint George, is a dynastic order of knighthood of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Currently, the grand magistry of the order is disputed among the two claimants to the headship of the former reigning House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as heirs of the House of Farnese, namely Prince Pedro and Prince Carlo. The order was one of the rare orders confirmed as a religious-military order in a 1718 papal bull owing to a notable success in liberating Christians in the Peloponnese. Together with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (confirmed by papal bull in 1572) it is one of the three international Catholic Orders that still has this status today. Although it is not an order of chivalry under patronage of the Holy See, membership is restricted to practising Catholics. Though the order is alleged to have been founded in its original form by Constantine the Great in 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 family by the name Angelo Flavio Comneno. Though this family, extinct in 1698, claimed to be connected to the Byzantine Komnenos and Angelos dynasties, such a familial connection cannot be proven. The order being connected to the Byzantine Empire is fantasy as chivalric orders were completely unknown in the Byzantine world, so much of the alleged 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. History Origins 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.