The Grand College of the Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests

Origins and history

The Order is genuinely old, and the Grand College’s own history traces it through several countries:

• Ireland, 1755 and 1792. In its early days it was known as the Priestly Order, and it is mentioned in the ceremonies of the High Knights Templar of Ireland in 1755. Before its revival in the 1890s the Order traced its origin to the Anahilt Union Band in County Down, which dates from 1792. More than sixty such “Union Bands” have been traced in Ireland, though there was no ruling body over them.
• Scotland and England, 1800–1812. The Order appeared at Kilmarnock in 1800 and spread to Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1807 the Early Grand Conclave of Scotland warranted Joppa Encampment of Knights Templar in Sunderland to work it, and in 1812 Masons at Newcastle upon Tyne obtained a warrant from the Grand Conclave of England under the name of Royal Kent Encampment.
• A wider spread. Evidence shows it being worked in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in England, Scotland, Ireland, Corfu, France and probably North America. Freemason’s Book of the Royal Arch (1969) records a Lancashire chapter, Melchisedec, that worked a “Holy R.A. Knight Templar Priest” degree until 1860.
• Near extinction and revival, 1894. By the 1890s the Order had almost died out. On Good Friday, 23 March 1894, Henry Hotham, a Yorkshire Mason believed to be the last surviving Knight Templar Priest and its last Installed High Priest, admitted nine Knights under one of the Order’s original rules and so kept it alive. The revived body became Royal Kent Tabernacle, Time Immemorial, with 24 appendant degrees. It spent a short time under the Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees before the two separated by agreement. The Higher Degrees Handbook (1921) mentions the Newcastle Time Immemorial body working “a highly mystical and beautiful ceremony”.
• The Grand College, 1924. The independent Grand College held its first meeting at Newcastle upon Tyne on 15 May 1924. Growth was slow at first. The first four New Zealand Tabernacles were founded between 1930 and 1944, Australia followed in 1949, and expansion sped up from the early 1960s.

Membership

The Grand College lists the following requirements. A candidate must be a subscribing member of a Craft Lodge, a Royal Arch Chapter and a Knights Templar Preceptory, must have been a Master Mason for at least three years, and must profess the Trinitarian Christian faith. The Grand College explains that the Order was never meant to be exclusive for its own sake. Each of its appendant degrees has its own ceremonial, and the founders felt that a Mason needed some standing and experience in Freemasonry to appreciate them.

Requirements can be stricter in some places. The Freemasons NSW & ACT booklet on associated orders (2015) stated that candidates there had to be subscribing Past Masters of a Craft Lodge, and that joining was by application on the prescribed form. Anyone interested should check the current rules with the local Tabernacle.

The ceremony and its teaching

The Order’s central purpose is spiritual growth through the study of priesthood as the Bible presents it, drawing on both the Old and New Testaments. Alongside the main ceremony there are thirty-one appendant degrees, each with its own ceremonial working, which a new Knight Priest receives as part of his admission. The detail of the ceremony is reserved for members.

The Order’s symbol is an equilateral triangle bearing letters whose meaning is explained only to members. A local meeting is called a Tabernacle and is presided over by a High Priest. He is assisted by seven Knight Priests, each associated with one of seven pillars, and by a Conductor, whose role is similar to that of a Deacon in a Craft lodge. In New South Wales, according to the 2015 booklet, the Tabernacle met four times a year, with one meeting set aside for installing the new High Priest.

Linked to the Knight Templar Priests is the Order of Holy Wisdom, an eighteenth-century ceremony long associated with the Order that fell out of use because it needed costly furnishings. It was reintroduced in an abridged form in 2014, and every existing Knight Templar Priest became a member automatically.

Regalia

The regalia matches the Order’s priestly character. A Knight Templar Priest wears a white tunic with a red cross on the front, a plain white mantle, and a mitre bearing a cross on the front and the back. The High Priest wears a taller mitre with a patriarchal cross, the cross with two horizontal bars. According to the NSW booklet (2015), joining cost about $50, annual dues were about $70, and the mantle and mitre cost about $180. Prices vary by country and change over time.

The Order today

The Grand College at York governs the Order, and its head, the Grand High Priest, is styled “Most Illustrious Knight Priest”. The Grand College currently lists 273 Tabernacles on every continent, in countries including England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Bolivia, Togo and several Caribbean nations. Ironically, there are none in Ireland, where the Order is thought to have begun. Two other sovereign bodies are in full amity with York. The Grand College of America was recognised in 1935, and the Grand College of France was warranted in 2018.

For more information or if you would like to join, please visit the following URLs:
– https://knighttemplarpriests.com/ (the Grand College)
– https://hraktp.org/
– https://issuu.com/apmgraphics/docs/freemason_nsw_act_other_orders

The Grand College publishes the locations of all Tabernacles in its Yearbook and will answer membership enquiries directly. You can also ask a Knight Templar Priest in your own Preceptory.