The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine is a Christian order of Masonic knighthood built around the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Its full title is “The Masonic and Military Order of the Red Cross of Constantine and the Orders of the Holy Sepulchre and of St John the Evangelist”, because one governing body runs three linked orders. It is open only to Craft and Royal Arch Masons who profess the Christian faith, and it is often described as one of the most distinguished orders open to a Christian Freemason.
The Order presents itself as the next step in a journey. The Craft degrees teach through symbols and the Holy Royal Arch adds philosophical depth, and the Red Cross of Constantine then sets both in an explicitly Christian and chivalric light. Freemasons of New South Wales and the ACT describe it as the place where a Mason may come to a fuller understanding of the “hidden mysteries of Nature and Science” mentioned in the Craft degrees.
Constantine and the cross in the sky
The Order’s story is set in the early fourth century. On 28 October 312, Constantine defeated his rival emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber, just outside Rome. Two Christian writers of the time linked the victory to divine help, though their accounts differ. Lactantius says Constantine was told in a dream to mark his soldiers’ shields with a sign of Christ, while Eusebius describes a vision of a cross in the sky. Over time the two versions blended into the familiar picture of Constantine seeing a cross before the battle, together with the promise traditionally rendered in Latin as In hoc signo vinces, “In this sign you will conquer”. A Lexicon of Freemasonry (1869) describes the degree as founded on exactly this vision.
Constantine’s conversion led to Christianity being tolerated across the Roman Empire, and the Order honours both Constantine and his mother, St Helena. Historians treat the details of the vision with caution. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry notes that the legend “rests on very insecure grounds”, although it is the legend, not the forensic history, that the Order uses as its moral framework.
Origins and history
Like many chivalric orders in Freemasonry, the Red Cross of Constantine once claimed a very long pedigree. A sketch of its history printed by the Grand Council of Pennsylvania in 1872 dates its foundation to Constantine himself in AD 313 and tells of revivals among the Crusaders. These are traditions, not documented history, and no modern historian accepts them. The order has also often been confused with other Masonic bodies that use the words “Red Cross”, including the Red Cross of Babylon, which is a quite different degree about the rebuilding of the Temple.
Its documented Masonic history starts in late eighteenth-century England:
- c. 1780–1788. The Pocket History of Freemasonry says the degree was probably being worked about 1780, and a roll of 1788 lists several well-known Freemasons. The 1872 sketch says it was conferred in England in 1788 by Sir Charles Shirreff.
- 1796–1813. Lord Rancliffe, then also head of the Knights Templar, became Grand Master in 1796. Judge Waller Rodwell Wright followed in 1804, and in 1813 the Duke of Sussex, Grand Master of the new United Grand Lodge of England, became Grand Sovereign.
- 1862–1865. After a long quiet period, the original Conclave was revived in 1862 and the Grand Council re-established in 1865. The driving force was Robert Wentworth Little (1840–1878), a clerk at Freemasons’ Hall who also founded the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. The Order’s present constitution dates from this revival.
- 1869 onwards. The Order spread overseas, reaching Canada in 1869 and the United States in 1870, where its first Conclave was consecrated on 14 December. Canada formed its own Grand Imperial Council in 1890. Most American bodies united in 1907, and a breakaway Pennsylvania jurisdiction rejoined in 1958. Maine still keeps its own independent Grand Imperial Council.
Membership
A candidate must be a Master Mason and a Royal Arch Mason, must be a Christian, and must profess belief in the Holy Trinity. The local unit is the Conclave, led by a Sovereign with a Viceroy as second in command. In England and Wales the Order is governed by the Grand Imperial Conclave, which is administered from Mark Masons’ Hall in St James’s Street, London. Other countries have their own sovereign Grand Imperial Conclaves or Councils, all of which trace their origin back to England.
Degrees and appendant orders
The system has five stages: three degrees of the Red Cross of Constantine itself and two appendant orders. A new member is installed as a Knight of the Red Cross of Constantine (sometimes called a Knight of Rome), in a short ceremony drawing moral lessons from Constantine’s story. He must then take the two appendant orders, usually on a later occasion and often both on the same day. Only after that can he advance further.
- Priest-Mason (Installed Eusebius). The second degree, conferred in a “College” on a member elected Viceroy of his Conclave. It is the most spiritual of the Order’s ceremonies.
- Prince-Mason. The third degree, conferred in a “Senate” on a member elected Sovereign of his Conclave. Either of these higher degrees can be given to other members by dispensation.
The Order of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the published outline, this order looks back to St Helena’s discovery of the True Cross and takes its theme from the three days between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, with the legend of knights guarding the place where Christ was buried. It meets in a “Sanctuary” under a Prelate. Its badge is a Jerusalem cross set within a circle at the centre of a cross potent, enclosed on the jewel in a black and gold lozenge. It has no connection with the Roman Catholic order of the same name, although both remember the same events.
The Order of St John the Evangelist. A short and openly Christian ceremony. The published outline says it centres on a great discovery made in the ruins of the Temple at Jerusalem and on the founding of the Knights of St John. It meets in a “Commandery” under a Commander, and its jewel is a silver eagle with outspread wings, the traditional emblem of St John, with a crown added for present and past Commanders.
Much of the deeper meaning of these ceremonies is kept for members. Writers who belong to the Order generally say only that it offers a Christian reading of the Craft and Royal Arch, and leave the details to those who join.
The Order today
The Red Cross of Constantine now works in almost fifty countries. Its main bodies include the Grand Imperial Conclave for England and Wales, the Grand Imperial Council of Scotland, the Grand Imperial Conclave of New South Wales and the ACT, the Grand Imperial Council of Canada and the United Grand Imperial Council of the United States, which also covers Mexico and the Philippines. The Order has never been established in Ireland. In the American York Rite, membership is widely regarded as one of the highest honours a Mason can receive, and it is sometimes compared to the honorary 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite. It should not be confused with the Knights of Constantinople, a separate degree of the Allied Masonic Degrees, or with the Knights Templar, although many members belong to all of them.
The videos below give a fuller introduction to the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine.
For more information or if you would like to join, please visit the following URLs:
– https://markmasonshall.org/orders/red-cross-of-constantine
– https://www.constantinenswact.org/
– https://thamesredcrossofconstantine.org/the-order-2
– https://issuu.com/mediaflash/docs/quovadis/s/10930605
– https://issuu.com/apmgraphics/docs/freemason_nsw_act_other_orders
A good first step is to speak to a member of the Order or to the Secretary of your own Lodge or Royal Arch Chapter.
Sources:
– Freemason NSW & ACT, “Associated Masonic Orders” booklet (2015): the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine
– Thames Division Red Cross of Constantine, “What is the Red Cross of Constantine?”
– Statutes of the Imperial, Ecclesiastical, Military and Masonic Order of Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine, Grand Council of Pennsylvania (1872), historical sketch
– The Pocket History of Freemasonry: “Red Cross of Rome and Constantine”
– A Lexicon of Freemasonry (1869): “Red Cross of Rome and Constantine”
– Albert G. Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry: “Constantine, the Cross of”
– Wikipedia: “Red Cross of Constantine”, “Battle of the Milvian Bridge”, “Robert Wentworth Little”