The Knights of Malta are members of an international brotherhood founded during the First Crusade. This was the first multinational expedition mounted by Western States to liberate the Holy Land in the Eleventh Century.

For a thousand years they have been wearing many makes and disguises:; they have been monks, warriors, adventurers, medical researchers, philanthropists and spies. They are still operating today out of their enclave in Rome.

Who are the Knights of Malta?

The Crusades were the beginning of a 700 year long struggle between Christianity and the Moslem world that affected every European country; this was the Holy war in the name of God against the "enemies" of the cross. The Muslim Jihad against the infidels was also in the name of God. And it was to be a war to the death. That long conflict supposedly ended with WWII but unresolved issues still plague us today. This makes the story of the Knights of Malta very contemporary.

Who ware their descendants still with us today and will they play a role in the Twenty-first Century?

The Knights of Malta started out as an Hospitaller Order caring for the poor and sick who visited the Holy Land. Very quickly these religious brothers became the most fierce and feared warriors of Europe. They became legendary as the selfless and compassionate "Soldiers of God" who tended wounds, fought to their death and decapitated their enemies.

When Charles V deeded them the island of Malta in 1530 in order to protect the Emperor’s navigation routes against the Turks they became the very last bastion of the Christian fight against the Ottoman Empire.

For 200 years they fought Barbary Coast pirates stealing their gold and becoming enormously wealthy in the process. They turned Malta into one of the great capitals of Europe. Napoleon confiscated their treasures in 1798 which he soon lost in Egyptian waters and remain mysteriously undiscovered today.

Today the Knights are a powerful Sovereign State supported by the Vatican. The Order runs a worldwide network of relief operations with 50 embassies worldwide.

This documentary was filmed in 12 countries ranging from Italy to Greece, from Turkey to Israel all the way to Russia, following the eventful story of this amazing 1,000 year old brotherhood.