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| | THE ORDER OF MALTA, SOVEREIGNTY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) |
 | | By the end of the century the Order exchanged Ambassadors or Ministers with the Holy Roman Emperor, the Kings of France, Spain, Portugal, Prussia, and Sardinia, and the Emperor of Russia, the Republic of Venice, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the Elector of Bavaria. |
 | | The German invasions of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in 1939, and of Norway, Greece and Yugoslavia in 1940, led to the establishment of governments-in-exile and of puppet regimes in the occupied States. |
 | | The Statutes of the Order are the modern equivalent of the ancient Rule confirmed by Pope Paschal II in 1113, but the authority of the Holy See did not affect or impinge upon the validity of the Orders rule of either Rhodes (from 1310 to 1523) or Malta (from 1530-1798). |
| www.chivalricorders.org /orders/smom/maltasov.htm (9540 words) |
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