Order of the Pantocrator
The Chivalric Order of the Pantocrator
Motto
Nous nous reposons aprés la reconquête de Constantinople
History
The Knights of the Order of the Pantocrator were founded in the Morea in 1453 by men determined to reconquer Constantinople and restore the Byzantine Empire. Many were survivors of the siege of Constantinople, ashamed that they had fled rather than remained with their beloved Basileus, Constantine XI. Still others were men who saw the proverbial writing on the wall for their way of life in the isolated Despotate of the Morea, and were determined not to be conquered by the Ottomans without a fight.
They had elected to remain true to the union of the Eastern and Western churches negotiated by the Emperor John VIII and upheld by Constantine XI, laying the seeds for Pantocratoria's modern Catholicism. It was this Catholicism which led them to attempt to flee to Italy with their families, where they hoped to gain support from the Pope, when the Morea fell to the Turks. The primitive navigation techniques available to the Knights of the Order of the Pantocrator would turn what should have been a short and uneventful journey into a nightmare which would only end on a totally foreign shore.
The Knights of the Order of the Pantocrator and their families managed to misnavigate their way out of the Mediterranean altogether, before being swept out into the Atlantic ocean. They eventually reached the Pantocratorian Archipelago, which they attributed to a miraculous intervention by Christ the Pantocrator. At the site of their landing they founded the city of New Constantinople in 1462.
The Order of the Pantocrator had amongst their number the bastard son of Demetrius Palaeologus (the brother of Constantine XI), whom they appointed Emperor Demetrius I Palaeologus of Pantocratoria. Together with their families, they began to build a nation in the largest island of the archipelago, but the Order remained a military one, still dedicated to the reconquest of Constantinople. The Order would launch four separate campaigns to reconquer their ancestral home, all of which failed (consistently as a result of poor navigation, which became jokingly regarded as the Order's curse). These campaigns were called, respectively, the First Pantocratorian Crusade, the Second Pantocratorian Crusade, the Third Pantocratorian Crusade, and the Fourth Pantocratorian Crusade.
When the Emperor Manuel VII Comnenus failed to call a Fifth Pantocratorian Crusade in 1753, instead declaring a simply day of remembrance, the Knights of the Order of the Pantocrator rioted. The Emperor crushed their rebellion with his own legions of troops, putting an end to the Order of the Pantocrator as a military organisation. He placed the Knights of the Order of the Pantocrator under his own personal authority, and used knighthoods as a means of rewarding loyal service instead of as a means of raising troops for crusades. It is now among the most highly regarded orders of knighthoods in the world, and is regarded as the highest recognition of loyal service in Pantocratoria. Knighthoods are predominantly conferred for charity work, distinguished public service, great personal service to the crown, and humanitarianism.
Ranks
The Order includes five classes, in decreasing order of seniority:
- Grand Master (GMOP - a class only held by the Emperor of Pantocratoria)
- Knight Master (KMOP)
- Knight (KOP)
- Commander (COP)
- Member (MOP)
Only the highest three ranks entail admission into knighthood. With the exception of an Empress Augusta (like Empress Theodora II) who would be the Grand Mistress of the Order of the Pantocrator, a woman may not be admitted into any of the knighthood ranks.
