In 2003, the Vatican Press (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano) published in Italian an extraordinary book by Alfonso Marini Dettina entitled IL LEGITTIMO ESERCIZIO DEL GRAN MAGISTERO DEL SACRO MILITARE ORDINE COSTANTINIANO DI SAN GIORGIO (THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF THE GRAND MASTERSHIP OF THE SACRED MILITARY CONSTANTINIAN ORDER OF SAINT GEORGE). This excellent volume sets forth in clear language the basis on which the late Infante Carlos of Spain, Prince of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria was the legitimate Grand Master of the Constantinian Order. The Infante Carlos was succeeded at his death in 2015 by his son and heir, the present Grand Master, Prince Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria. The book received the Imprimatur of Bishop Rino Fisichella, Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University.
A strong interest has recently been expressed by several members of the Order in having this volume translated into English, so that it will be available more widely to the Order’s membership. A proposal to have it translated is being formulated. Steps are being taken to obtain the necessary permissions and to identify an appropriate translator.
The Introduction to the book was written by His Eminence Gilberto Cardinal Agustoni, Prefect Emeritus of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Segnatura and Bailiff Grand Cross of the Constantinian Order. The Preface was written by Monsignor Brian Edwin Ferme, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law at the Pontifical Lateran University. Monsignor Ferme is one of the Church’s most distinguished canon lawyers.
In his Introduction, Cardinal Agustoni wrote:
I present with great satisfaction the Doctoral Thesis in Canon Law of the lawyer Alfonso Marini Dettina, which crowns an academic effort awarded by the Pontifical Lateran University with the highest marks, 90/90, summa cum laude.
The doctoral dissertation, based on research and even the study of sources unknown until now, retraces the events of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George over time, employing canon law, which is necessary to approach the juridical issues that emerged.
The text of the work is smooth and well structured, provided with summaries and documentary appendices that make reading it pleasant and allow for a gradually deepened understanding of the topics covered. The mature critical sense and the passionate search for historical truth that distinguish the author of this brilliant doctoral thesis deserve particular attention. The Constantinian Order in its Catholicity, in its tireless religious practice and in the charitable work of its members, embodies the Church Militant of which its Patron, Saint George, Soldier and Martyr for the Faith, was a shining example. It is certainly no coincidence that in the last century in Rome alone, three Servants of God served in this Order: Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII; the Rev. Father Emilio Recchia, Parish Priest of the Basilica of S. Croce al Flaminio, where the Order has its own chapel; and the architect Aristide Leonori, who designed the Basilica itself.
To the author of this valuable scholarly work I express my heartfelt congratulations and the sincere hope that the recognition of the value of this noble intellectual effort will bring him well-deserved satisfaction.
Rome, 8 December 2002
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Gilberto Card. Augustoni
Prefect Emeritus of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Segnatura
Monsignor Ferme, Dean of the Pontifical Lateran University, wrote this Preface:
PREFACE
Such a vast work rich in original and sharp reflections has not been published on the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George for many years. The innumerable pieces of information collected through intense bibliographic and archival research show a vivid and unprecedented picture of the historical events of the Constantinian Order (but also of other religious-chivalric Orders, such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Papal Collegia Militum).
The author notes that the current categories of the Codex Iuris Canonici [NOTE: the Code of Canon Law] seem sometimes too broad and sometimes too narrow in the attempt to grasp the exact juridical nature of the religious-chivalric Orders which, due to their essential peculiarities linked to chivalric traditions and values, deserve specific legislation in harmony with the vision of the laity resulting from the Second Vatican Council.
Particular space is devoted to the demonstration of the nullity of the so-called Act of Cannes of 1900, a son’s private deed of renunciation of a future inheritance from his living father, in which the Grand Mastership of the Constantinian Order was then implicitly claimed to be included.
The fulcrum of the thesis, discussed on 28 June 2002, is the identification of the canon law nature of the Grand Mastership of the Constantinian Order: it is an ecclesiastical office established by the Pope which does not require ordinatio in sacris and has always been held by a baptized layman, often a married one.
Hence the observation which, according to canon law, alone allows us to reject any influence of the Act of Cannes on the succession to the Grand Mastership of the Constantinian Order: being an ecclesiastical office, the Grand Mastership could never have been renounced by anyone who at the time of such renunciation did not already hold the position, that is, by someone who was not already Grand Master.
Finally, the thesis illustrates the attempts and hypotheses for settling the current controversy over the Grand Mastership; I personally believe a peaceful solution is possible starting from everyone’s search for what still unites the parties.
3 December 2002
Prof. Monsignor Brian Edwin Ferme
Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law
The Pontifical Lateran University
NOTE:
A SHORT DISCUSSION OF THE SUCCESSION TO THE GRAND MASTERSHIP OF THE CONSTANTINIAN ORDER IS TO BE FOUND AT THE ‘FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS’ (FAQ) SECTION OF THIS WEBSITE:
How is the Grand Master chosen?
The succession to the position of Grand Master of the Order is unique among Catholic orders of chivalry, in that it passes by male primogeniture within the Royal House of Bourbon (as heirs of the Farnese family).
In 1698, the grand mastership of the Order was acquired by Francesco Farnese, Duke of Parma. Pope Innocent XII’s apostolic brief Sincerae Fidei in 1699 and Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I’s imperial decree Agnoscimus et notum facimus of the same year confirmed to Francesco Farnese and his heirs the position of Grand Master, as a dignity separate and apart from the House of Farnese’s sovereignty over the Duchy of Parma.
In 1705, the Farnese grand master granted the Order new statutes, approved the following year by the Pope, which established the grand mastership as an ecclesiastical office passed by primogeniture among the male heirs of the Farnese family, a requirement confirmed again in the 1718 papal bull Militantis Ecclesiae.
In 1731, the House of Farnese died out in the male line. The positions both of Grand Master of the Constantinian Order and Duke of Parma then passed, as separate dignities, to Prince Charles of Bourbon, Infante of Spain, who was considered the heir of the House of Farnese as the eldest son of Elisabeth Farnese and King Philip V of Spain. Charles was forced to surrender the Duchy of Parma in 1736, but he retained the separate position of Grand Master of the Constantinian Order and continued to administer the Constantinian Order’s Parma estates and membership, despite no longer being Parma’s sovereign duke.
Charles’s succession as Grand Master of the Constantinian Order occurred in 1731. He subsequently became King of Naples and Sicily in 1734.
In 1759, the same Charles, still King of Naples and Sicily, inherited the throne of Spain in succession to his childless elder half-brother. Two months later, he abdicated the thrones of Naples and Sicily to his second surviving son, Ferdinand. (Ferdinand then became King Ferdinand IV of Naples and King Ferdinand III of Sicily. In 1816, after the two kingdoms were joined, he became King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. For the sake of simplicity, we shall refer to him here as King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies). Some ten days after abdicating the thrones of Naples and Sicily, Charles abdicated the position of Constantinian Grand Master to the same Ferdinand. Thus, Charles remained Constantinian grand master after ascending the Spanish throne and after abdicating the thrones of Naples and Sicily. In his Constantinian abdication, he delegated to his son Ferdinand the position of “first born Farnese heir”, as this was a necessary condition of Ferdinand’s becoming Grand Master.
These separate abdications in 1759 underlined the fact that the Constantinian Order and its grand mastership were separate from the Crowns of Naples and Sicily (later the Crown of the Two Sicilies). Charles’s abdication of the thrones of Naples and Sicily when he became King of Spain was in execution of the Pragmatic Decree of 1759, which specified that the Crown of Naples and the Crown of Spain must not be united and held by the same monarch. The Pragmatic Decree was intended to address questions concerning the balance of power in Europe and was enacted under the provisions of two international treaties (in 1737 and 1759).
For his part, King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies confirmed the independence of the Constantinian Order from the Crowns of Naples and Sicily in a 1796 decree, which stated in part: In his (Ferdinand’s) royal person there exists two very distinct qualities, the one of monarch of the Two Sicilies, and the other of grand master of the illustrious, royal and military Constantinian Order, which though united gloriously in the same person form nonetheless at the same time two separate independent lordships.
At the time Ferdinand became Constantinian grand master, the Holy See fully recognized that succession to the position of Constantinian grand master, a dignity based in canon law, was separate from other positions, such as the secular position of King of Naples and Sicily. The Holy See recognized this again in 1861, when the Two Sicilies dynasty lost its crown. Indeed, the Holy See continued to accord privileges and recognition to the Constantinian Order for decades after the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had ceased to exist.
The Order’s Statutes of 1919, confirmed by the Holy See, and the revised Statutes of 1934-1943 (in the articles governing the succession to the grand mastership) state explicitly that the “dignity of Grand Master, reserved to the House of Bourbon, as heirs of the House of Farnese, is transmitted by male primogeniture.”
The Order’s Royal Deputation in 1935 issued a lengthy historical statement in which the separate nature of the Order from the Crown of the Two Sicilies was emphasized.
It is worth emphasizing too that succession to the Constantinian grand mastership and succession to the dignity of head of the Bourbon Two Sicilies dynasty are governed by two very different sets of laws. Under canon law, because the dignity of Constantinian grand master is an ecclesiastical office with episcopal powers (powers delegated to the Order’s Grand Prior, now Cardinal Müller), the grand mastership can only be held by males. If the male dynasts of the House of the Two Sicilies were to die out, the grand mastership would pass to the senior male of the next line of descent from Elisabeth Farnese, the House of Bourbon-Parma. In contrast, under the Two Sicilies dynastic laws, in the event the male dynasts of the House of the Two Sicilies were to die out, the succession to the dignity of head of the dynasty would pass to the female dynast most closely related to the last dynastic head.
Since the accession of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies to the position of Constantinian grand master in 1759, the Constantinian grand mastership has passed by strict male primogeniture among his direct descendants in the male line of the House of Bourbon.
The present Grand Master, HRH Prince Pedro of Bourbon, Prince of the Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria succeeded his father as Grand Master in 2015. Prince Pedro is the senior living descendant of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies by male primogeniture. The Grand Master’s heir is his eldest son, HRH Prince Jaime, Duke of Noto and Grand Prefect of the Constantinian Order.
A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF THE SO-CALLED ‘ACT OF CANNES’ OF 1900 IS ALSO TO BE FOUND AT THE ‘FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS’ (FAQ) SECTION OF THIS WEBSITE:
Why does a junior prince of the House of the Two Sicilies currently dispute the rights of the Grand Master?
A junior prince of the Two Sicilies dynasty, HRH Prince Charles of Bourbon Two Sicilies (whose assumed title of Duke of Castro has now been acknowledged by the Duke of Calabria) claims to be Grand Master of the Constantinian Order and Head of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies, in place of the legitimate Grand Master and dynastic head, HRH Prince Don Pedro, Duke of Calabria.
The Duke of Castro’s claim to be Constantinian Grand Master is mistaken.
HRH Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria, is the senior living descendant by male primogeniture of Ferdinand I, Constantinian Grand Master and King of the Two Sicilies, and is thus the Constantinian Grand Master. (See the response above to the question “How is the Grand Master chosen?”). Among today’s living descendants of King Ferdinand I in the line of male primogeniture, the Duke of Castro, as a member of a cadet line of the dynasty, is in 2023 only 6th in line.
The Castro claim derives from an unfortunate dispute within the Two Sicilies dynasty that dates back more than 60 years. In 1960, the undisputed Head of the Two Sicilies Royal House and undisputed Constantinian Grand Master, Prince Ferdinand Pio, Duke of Calabria, died without surviving male issue. His next younger brother, Prince Carlo, had died before him, leaving one surviving son, Prince Alfonso, Infante of Spain, who succeeded as Two Sicilies dynastic head and Duke of Calabria (and was immediately recognized as such by the Heads of the Royal Houses of Spain, Parma and Portugal, among others). But a junior prince of the Two Sicilies dynasty, Prince Rainieri (grandfather of the present Duke of Castro), challenged the dynastic succession. Rainieri claimed to have become both dynastic head and Constantinian grand master.
As has already been explained, any claim that the Constantinian Order grand mastership is united with the Two Sicilies Crown is entirely mistaken. (Again, see the response above to the question “How is the Grand Master chosen?”).
The Duke of Castro’s claim to be Head of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies, while also mistaken, is more complicated to address. A detailed treatment of the flaws in his claim is beyond the scope of this website, which is dedicated to the Constantinian Order, but a brief mention of a couple of key points may be helpful to the reader.
The Castro claim derives from a declaration, called the Act of Cannes, signed in 1900 by HRH Prince Carlo of the Two Sicilies, great-grandfather of the current Grand Master, HRH Prince Pedro, shortly before Prince Carlo’s marriage to the Princess of the Asturias, the then heiress to the throne of Spain. In essence, as discussed below, the Act of Cannes specified that Prince Carlo renounced his eventual rights to the Two Sicilies Crown in the event his wife were to succeed to the Spanish throne and he were to become King Consort of Spain.
King Charles III of Spain in his Pragmatic Decree of 1759 had confirmed the right of all his male line descendants to both thrones, but prohibited the union of the Spanish Crown with that of the Two Sicilies in one person, in order to preserve the European balance of power. The Act of Cannes expressly stated that it was signed “in execution of the Pragmatic Decree [of 1759]”, and “in accord with the laws and customs of our family.” The Pragmatic Decree and the family laws and customs merely prohibited the union of the two crowns. The Act of Cannes was intended to address a possible future event: what would happen if the Princess of the Asturias became Queen Regnant of Spain and her husband Don Carlo King Consort of Spain. If this condition were to occur, Prince Carlo would have had to renounce his Two Sicilies rights to a younger son. (There were many instances of marriages between princes and princesses of both kingdoms between 1759 and 1960 without any consideration of the possibility that these might prejudice the rights of their descendants. Indeed, in 1900, weeks before Carlo’s marriage, the Spanish Minister of Justice had stated in the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, that there was no need for any renunciations by either Prince Carlo or his future wife, and if one was made it would in any case by null and void, in part because the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had ceased to exist in 1861.)
In the event, the Princess of the Asturias never became Queen of Spain and her husband never became King Consort. Therefore, the possible event on which the conditional renunciation of Prince Carlo was predicated never came to pass. Thus, the Act of Cannes did not prejudice any of the Two Sicilies rights of Prince Carlo and his descendants. A conditional declaration is of no effect if the condition on which it is based does not occur.
It is important to note that the Act of Cannes pertains solely to the Two Sicilies succession and has no relevance whatever to the separate position of Grand Master of the Constantinian Order. Indeed, the grand mastership of the Constantinian Order was not even mentioned in the text of the Act of Cannes. (Indeed, even if the Act of Cannes had mentioned the separate dignity of Grand Master, however, which it did not, any attempted renunciation of the grand mastership would have been a complete nullity. An ecclesiastical dignity like that of Grand Master of the Constantinian Order can only be renounced by the person actually holding the position, that is, by the person who at the time is the Grand Master. It cannot be renounced in advance by somebody who is in line to succeed to the dignity but does not actually hold it.)
Some of the most prominent legal scholars of various countries have analyzed the Act of Cannes and come to the same conclusion: namely, that it did not affect any of the Two Sicilies rights of Prince Carlo and his descendants.
The legality of the succession in 1964 of Prince Pedro’s father, the late Prince and Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria, to the Headship of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies and to the Constantinian Grand Mastership was in 1983 and 1984 investigated by five of the highest state bodies of the Kingdom of Spain. All five independent state bodies (headed by the Council of State) reported unanimously to the King of Spain that Don Carlos, Duke of Calabria was the legitimate heir to both dignities. These five Spanish state institutions were: the Institute of Heraldry and Genealogy; the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Justice; and the Council of State.
This legal examination was ordered by King Juan Carlos of Spain when, after the restoration of the Spanish monarchy in 1975, the junior Two Sicilies branch had sought the King’s recognition and had sent numerous documents on the dispute to His Majesty. Because King Charles III of Spain (who had also been King Charles VII of Naples and Charles III of Sicily) had promulgated the rules of the Two Sicilies succession in his Pragmatic Decree of 1759, which he had signed in execution of several treaty obligations to which Spain remained bound, it was thought that the Spanish Crown, under King Juan Carlos as successor of King Charles III, was the appropriate authority to interpret the provisions of the succession and to resolve the dispute in a definitive manner.
CLICK HERE for a book on the Order published by the Boletin Oficial des Estado, the official organ of the Spanish State – see pages 477 to 488 for the full report of the Spanish Council of State.
More recently, on 28 November 2014 the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared the Constantinian Order and the Order of St. Januarius to be “under the protection and historically tied to the Crown of Spain” and on 2 June 2017 a further declaration by the Ministry confirmed that the Constantinian Order and the Order of St Januarius are “historically tied to the Crown of Spain”. This “historic” tie derives from the fact that King Charles III of Spain was Constantinian Grand Master even after he became King of Spain (he succeeded as King of Spain on 10 August 1759 and resigned as Constantinian Grand Master on 16 October 1759), and he retained the grand mastership of the Order of St. Januarius (which he had founded in 1738) until December 1766.
