The grand master of the Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910) is the leader of a confraternal order claiming legacy and contingency to the medieval Catholic military order known as the Order of Saint Lazarus.
During the period from 1814 to 1841, the order was under the direction of a Council of Officers, with King Louis XVIII (1814âÂÂ1824) and King Charles X (1824âÂÂ1831) as protectors of the order. It was then passed on, evolving into the current list of grand masters.
The order lost its royal protection in 1831 but continued to function under the direction of the Council of Officers.
The period following the loss of temporal protection by the French Royal Family in 1831 until 1910 was controversial. Some argue that the order did not survive, while others argue that the period is, at best, shrouded in mystery, as no contemporary documentation appears to have survived.
The issue was resolved, on the one hand, by H.R.H. Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris, Duke of France, Head of the Royal House of France, who in 2004 reinstated the temporal protection of the Royal House of France over the Order of Saint Lazarus, and on the other hand by the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch Gregory III Laham, who on 27 May 2012 confirmed the uninterrupted protection of the Melkite Patriarchs of Antioch over the Order of Saint Lazarus from 1841 onwards.
Modern tradition of the order maintains that, after 1841, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchs assumed the leadership of the order, as Hospitaller Nobles of Saint Lazarus.