The monograph is dedicated to the history of the oldest spiritual knightly order of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout its centuries-old history, the order was forced to change its location more than once, and the name of the order and its knights also changed. At the beginning they were called Hospitallers, or Johannites, from 1291 “Knights of Cyprus”, from 1306 “Knights of Rhodes”. Only when in 1530 the order received possession of the island of Malta from the Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation Charles V, did it begin to be called “Maltese”. However, to this day the order continues to be called the “Order of St. John”, “Order of the Hospitallers” or “Order of St. John of Jerusalem”. Much attention in the study is paid to the relationship between the order and the Russian Empire. Documents unknown to Russian researchers from foreign publications and Russian archives are introduced into scientific circulation. For the first time, readers are offered a historical essay about the Order of Malta in the 19th–20th centuries.