The beginnings of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem can be traced to around 1170, when monks from a neighboring Benedictine abbey established a hospice in Jerusalem to care for the growing number of Christians making the long and perilous journey to the holy city. The hospice soon developed into a hospital, and in 1133 the Pope confirmed its independence. Over the next 40 years it became a religious and military order, with its brothers and sisters (known as Hospitallers of St. John or Knights Hospitallers) providing care to the poor and sick of any faith. They also assumed the additional role of defending all Christians and others within their care when they were threatened.
Originally one of three charitable foundations of the modern Order, the St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Foundation was established in 1882. Today, the Eye Hospital, whose work is done not only in Jerusalem, but also in Gaza, as well as in the West Bank, is supported financially by the American Priory of the Order of St. John.
As the oldest and only charitable expert eye care facility in the Middle East, where the rate of blindness in the Palestinian population is ten times as high as in the West, the Eye Hospital provides essential sight-saving and life-changing eye care to over 130,000 people (including over 16,000 children) yearly to the remotest and most impoverished communities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or ability to pay. Donations help to maintain and expand this vital work.
Having met with Dr. Ahmad Ma’ali, the Eye Hospital’s first Palestinian CEO, during Saint Thomas’ 2021 Easter pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Fr. Turner had the opportunity to learn about an O.C.T. unit, a diagnostic machine that identifies abnormalities in parts of the retina and the ocular vascular system. This unit will enable surgeons to undertake precise surgical and non-surgical interventions, as well as to assess post-surgical impacts.
We are grateful to Fr. Turner for his proposal to the Grants Committee that it help to acquire this very important equipment for St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital, and to the Vestry for its approval of a grant to make that possible.
