Appendix II

THE CHRISTIAN DEGREES See para. 15

This Report does not attempt any detailed examination of rituals of other than those of the three Craft Degrees and of the Holy Royal Arch. There are also, however, the ‘Christian Degrees’: the Rose Croix, the Knights Templar, the Knights of Malta, and the Red Cross of Constantine.

All but the Rose Croix explicitly require prior membership of the Holy Royal Arch. It becomes of special importance, therefore, that attention is paid to the implications for Christians of membership of the Holy Royal Arch.

Admission to the Rose Croix, which is governed by the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree (cf. Appendix VI), requires prior membership of the seventeen Degrees of the Antient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry. The Degrees of Craft Masonry, which each candidate must already have received, are accepted as equivalent to the first three Degrees of this Rite. The next fourteen are awarded in name only in England as a preface to initiation into the Rose Croix — the eighteenth degree of the ‘Higher Degrees’ (cf. pam 39). The selected candidate is required to profess the Trinitarian and Christian Faith and be willing to take an Obligation in the Name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.