since has opened its membership to men and women of any faith. History Appearance of the Order of Saint John in German-speaking lands Soon after the formation of the Order in Jerusalem, supporters in Western Europe began to donate farmland and other assets for the objectives of the order, the military protection and medical aid of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In time, these landholdings were gathered into regional administrative divisions known as commanderies, each headed by a senior knight, or knight commander of the Order. The first commandery in the Germanies was founded in the mid-twelfth century. By 1318, the Bailiwick of Brandenburg had been established in the northeastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire, an aggregation of commanderies of the Order under a bailiff, a high officer of the Order. The riches and influence of the Bailiwick (especially after augmentation by properties of the suppressed Order of the Temple) were so sizeable that, in 1382, the Prior of the German Langue (the eight territorial "Tongues" of the mediaeval Order of Saint John were its major subdivisions) in what became known as the Accord of Heimbach recognized the right of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg to choose its own governor (the Bailiff of Brandenburg, more commonly called the Herrenmeister) and preceptors (the commanders of the commanderies constituting the Bailiwick). Early Modern Europe During the Protestant Reformation, large parts of the German Langue of the then-undivided Order of Saint John followed the leadership of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg and accepted Lutheran theology while continuing to recognize the headship of the grand master of the Order, who, with the majority of the knights, remained Roman Catholic. The higher officials of the Order, now headquartered on the Mediterranean island of Malta after the successive losses of Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes to Muslim Arabs and Turks, evinced a desire to maintain a relationship with the Protestant knights despite the theological and ecclesiological differences between the two groups. But in 1581, then Grand Master Jean de la Cassière called Herrenmeister Martin von Hohenstein before the Chapter (ruling council) of the Order of Saint John in Malta; when the Herrenmeister did not appear, De la Cassière declared the expulsion of the knights of the Bailiwick from the order, though he did so without the agreement of the Chapter. Though separated from the Roman Catholic main stem of the Order of Saint John, the Bailiwick of