FESTING FRA’ MATTHEW

Fra’ Matthew Festing, who died on 12 November 2021 in Malta aged 71, was Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta from 11 March 2008 until his resignation on 28 January 2017. He was only the second Englishman in history to have been elected to the role.

In his time as Grand Master he visited many countries where the Order of Malta carries out its charitable works and oversaw many international conferences and meetings of the Order, to encourage and support their worldwide projects. In all his endeavours, he never lost sight of the spiritual motivation of the Order and its mission.

Fra’ Matthew was born in Tarset, Northumbria and educated at Ampleforth and St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read history. He served in the Grenadier Guards and held the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. He was appointed OBE by the Queen and was one of her Deputy Lieutenants in the county of

Northumberland. His professional life was as an art expert at an international art auction house.

In 1977, he became a member of the Order of Malta, and took solemn religious vows in 1991, becoming a Professed Knight of the Order. Between 1993 and 2008 he was the Grand Prior of England, a role which had been in abeyance since 1806, and re-established by fellow English Grand Master, Servant of God Fra’ Andrew Bertie, in 1993. In this position he led missions of humanitarian aid to Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia after the recent disturbances in those countries. He attended the Order’s international annual pilgrimages to Lourdes every year of his adult life, where he was a familiar figure assisting the arriving pilgrims.

The funeral was celebrated by Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, Special Delegate of the Pope. The Archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna and the Prelate of the Order, Msgr. Jean Laffitte, concelebrated.

The highest authorities of the Order of Malta took part in the funeral service, led by the Lieutenant of the Grand Master, Fra’ Marco Luzzago. Present were the four High Charges, members of the Sovereign Council and numerous Professed members of the Order. Alongside them were members of the Order of Malta in their traditional church robe.

Arriving in Malta to pay their last respects to Fra’ Matthew were his brother, nephews and friends.

To pay homage to the 79th Grand Master and to testify the strong historical ties with the Order, the President of the Republic of Malta George Vella, Prime Minister Robert Abela, together with the highest institutional offices and numerous ambassadors accredited to Valletta, attended the funeral.

“Through the choice of becoming a Knight of Justice, Fra’ Matthew dedicated his life to the mission of the Order, a mission that has remained constant through the centuries: Tuìtio Fidei et Obsequium

Pauperum, the defense of the Faith and service to the poor,” stated Cardinal Tomasi in his homily.

“After nine centuries, the mission of the Order continues to inspire and it advances on the main road of the Church, faithful to its teaching and to all those who like Fra’ Matthew – and may he rest in peace –tried without fear of their limits to implement the Gospels’ message,” Tomasi then added.

Fra’ Matthew Festing is the 12th Grand Master to rest in the crypt of the Co-cathedral. The last Grand Master to be buried there was Fra’ Luis Mendez de Vasconcellos in 1623, although according to reliable sources, in the same crypt – built in the 16th Century – rests in an unmarked tomb the Grand Master Fra’ Francisco Ximenes de Texada, who died on the island in 1775.

The crypt is located under the main altar and contains the remains of eleven Grand Masters who led the Order from 1522 to 1623, including Jean de la Cassière, the one who commissioned the Church that would become the Co-cathedral of St. John, one of the main examples of Baroque architecture in Europe.

On the day of the funeral, the flags of the Magistral Palace and Villa in Rome and those of all the Order of Malta’s institutions, embassies and medical and social centres around the world were hoisted at half-mast as a sign of mourning.