O.S.J.

 Priory of France - O.S.J.
Regular Order of Saint John of Holy Land
ruled in France as associations according to the "loi du 1er juillet 1901"

Our Lady

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Our Lady of Philermos

Far before the Protestant and Roman Catholic Reformations, when, in 1310, driven off from the Holy Land, the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem emigrated from Cyprus to Rhodes, they found, at the South West of the town, upon the hill of Ialisos near Trianda, a chapel dedicated to Mary under the name of Our Lady of Philermos. There was venerated one of these icons, said to be painted by Saint Luke the Evangelist, the "Painter of the Virgin". The icon was very antique, and was remaining in this place from immemorial times, reminding several miracles which memory was transmitted by a constant tradition. The founder of that Marian centre had been a rich man, whose name had been lost for long. Having made his mind, for a reason unknown to us, to commit suicide, he climbed up on a height where the Phoenicians, in the old times, had risen up a temple to one of their solar divinities, and had fallen in ruins. There, on this mount haunted by all the demons of paganism, our desperate man was ready to carry through his reprehensible plan, when a Lady, all of white light, appearing to him, took him out of his plan, by the gentleness of her smile, and reconciled him with life.
Converted and penitent, he withdrew and lived in this place visited by heavens where he had met Our Lady, "The Cause of our Joy". He had built up there a chapel, where, with devotion, he placed the icon he had made brought from Jerusalem.
The veneration of that picture quickly spread over the Island, and the population used to visit it piously. As soon as they arrived, the Knights dedicated great devotion to Our Lady of Philermos, whose name became their war cry. Maybe this devotion can be explained by the expression of the face, and more particularly by that of the eyes, seemingly quietly showing, to the Hospitaller contemplating her, the poor and the sick that we are given to be next to, and to who we sometimes look at, without always knowing to really see him.
After the first siege of Rhodes, in 1480, Villiers de l'Isle Adam had instituted the custom to invoke her under the name of Our Lady of All Graces. Following the departure from Rhodes, incessantly invoked to intercede to guide the Knights searching for a new land, she will merit the name of "Odighitria",
Conducting Mother.
When the fleet of the Rhodes emigrants got under way, with a number of so few surviving Knights, no standards spread out. Only one banner floating mid mast of the ship sailed by the Grand Master : the banner of Our Lady, with these simple words :Afflictis spes mea rebus : "In my misfortune, You are my hope".

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