The knights of
		the Blue Cross

Humanitarian Organization of the Royal House of Portugal

For their nature, the Chivalric Orders, once abandoned the military aspect that most of them had in history, have dedicated themselves to assistance and charity, becoming similar, at least in the spirit, to the mercenary and hospital orders.
The Royal House of Portugal, through its crown and dynastic orders, intended to strengthen the spirit of sincere presence in the contemporary era, and wanted to characterize the chivalric spirit with a criteria of divulgation of the inspiring principles of the Orders themselves, uniting them to a much needed divulgation. This made the creation of the Order in the Merit Class very useful, since they protect the needed limitation in the number of people awarded by the Noble Orders, taking, in the meantime, the spirit of chivalry to all those who want to do some good.
More than that, in order to simplify its own regulations, the Royal House promoted the unification of the Great Mastership of the Orders of the Crown, so that the single Great Masters, keeping their historical specificity and uniqueness, have been reunited in the Great Unified Mastership of the Orders of the Royal House of Portugal.
In the same way, the Great Mastership of the dynastic orders have been collected in the Great Unified Mastership of the Dynastic Royal Orders of the Royal House of Saxe Cobourg of Bragança.
More than that, the Royal House wanted to give a sign of precise will and careful presence in today’s reality, by creating an Organization called “Knights of the Blue Cross”, who shall operate following criteria of definite structure.
This is, in fact, an organization intimately linked to the chivalric orders, from which it depends, and which answers to criteria that exalt its capability of being “autonomous, self-sufficient, professionally prepared, ready to the sacrifices requested by voluntary work”.