The Knights of Malta

Popularly known as the Knights of Malta, they were originally nurses and hospitallers who took care of the medical needs of pilgrims to the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. As popular as they are in Malta, along with their history and cultural heritage they imprinted on Malta during the 250 years they spent leading our country between 1530 and 1798, they are also popular in the USA. They do extraordinary philanthropic work in raising funds for charitable cases. In West Point Military Academy, Upstate New York, where thousands of cadets are trained as they join the army and follow in the steps of Patton, Schwartzkopf, and Colin Powell, the chapel has a stained glass window dedicated to the Knights of Malta. I took this photo in the 1980s, and it is featured on the left hand side of the chapel, next to a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher. 

Officially called Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, the Knights are a Catholic lay military order, traditionally of military, chivalric and noble nature. The order has been called "the smallest sovereign state in the world".