Knightly Return

Ever since Napoleon drove them from Malta in 1798 in order to use it as a way station for his invasion of Egypt, the Knights of Malta have not been allowed to return to the island whose name they bear. Last week Malta welcomed back its knights, who are members of the Roman Catholic Church's oldest chivalric order. To the crash of a 21-gun salute, a delegation of knights in regal red and black uniforms and feather-plumed helmets, led by Grand Master Fra Angelo de Mojana di Cologna, a Milanese nobleman, landed at the Maltese capital of Valletta --named for the commander who terrified besieging Moslems in 1565 by using the heads of decapitated Moslem prisoners as cannonballs.

Founded by the Blessed Gerard in Jerusalem in the 11th century to care for pilgrims to the Holy Land, the order has returned to a mission close to its original calling. The knights support a worldwide program of medical aid and refugee relief that extends to 42 countries. Of some 8,000 members, only 40 take the order's religious vows.

Despite their ceremonial return to Malta, the knights intend to keep their headquarters in Rome, where they enjoy the distinction of being the world's smallest sovereign state, with diplomatic relations with 37 countries. The total territory of the order, whose full title is the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, consists of two small Roman palaces, where the knights mint their own coins and raise funds for their good works by printing stamps.

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