Concerning the Constantinian Order of St.-George

In 1870, "prince" D=E8m=E8trios Rhodokanak=E8s published in London
(Longman, Green & Co.) a book called =ABThe Imperial Constantinian Order
of Saint George=BB. Offering no documentary reference whatsoever,
Rhodokanak=E8s states that the Order was created in 312 AD, and that the
Statutes were elaborated in 1192. His list of the Grand Magisters of
the Order includes the Ang=E9lo=EF (Eastern Roman Emperors) until 1282,
then the Doukas [presumably the Ang=E9lo=EF- Komnen=F4s-Doukas... ?] and,
last but not least, the imperial Pala=EFologos. D=E8m=E8trios
Rhodokanak=E8s states that Th=E9od=F4ra, daughter of Th=E9od=F4ros
Pala=EFologos - allegedly "grand magister" from 1598 to 1636 -
married a Rhodokanak=E8s, to whom she "passed" on the rights to the
hereditary Grand Magistery.

It is nice to notice that I=F4ann=E8s IX Pala=EFologos is mentioned in
Rhodokanak=E8s' book as Grand Magister from 1465-1498, while a(nother)
I=F4ann=E8s IX Pala=EFologos - unknown to the author - pretended to be
Grand Magister in the 1720s.

It is, nevertheless, interesting to notice how many times the Grand
Magistery of this Order was claimed - and often forged - by
families of Greek-Byzantine extraction.

In August 2004 I posted several messages at Royaut=E92 concerning the
Constantinian Order and the claims of the Cantacuzenes to the Grand
Magistery.
In 1919, the Cantacuzene archives were published by the Roumanian
Academy, editor : Ioan Constantin Filitti. Filitti discovered a copy of
a diploma presumably granted by Emperor I=F4ann=E8s Kantakouz=E8nos at
Demotika, on August 14th 1341, concerning the Constantinian Order of
Saint George and its Statutes. Filitti considers that the so-called
"original" was a forgery, produced in the 1720s or the 1730s by Radu
Cantacuzene in order to justify his own claims to the Order's Grand
Magistery (he was recognised as such by H.R. Emperor Charles VI on
February the 1st 1735).

Still... the collar of the Constantinian Order of Saint George is
carved since the 1680s on the graves of the Cantacuzene and in the
churches they erected in Bucharest. The claims of this family to the
Grand Magistery began sooner, and it must be pointed out that a
Cantacuzene (Constantine Cantacuzene, ca. 1639/1640 - =86 1716) studied
in Italy in the late 1660s : that means exactly the period when several
fantastic works were published in the Peninsula on the subject of the
Constantinian Order of Saint George.

Either the 17th century Cantacuzene knew something we don't know today,
or they indulged in believing and perpetuating a nicest myth...