Map to Shiraz Shish ka Bob
On the Agenda:
Each Sir Knight is directed to bring a name or names to submit as a candidate for membership in Gen. Henry Bates Stoddard Knight Masons Council No. 87.
Dues of $30 are again due. Bring your check with you to the meeting, please.
We will discuss logistics and possibilities for our St. Patrick's Festive Board in March. Come prepared to offer your ideas and suggestions.
Our mission includes perpetuating the ancient rituals of the Irish Masonic Canon (the "Green Degrees"); elevating and honoring Freemasons of character; fostering regular exploration and study of Masonic tradition and heritage in the spirit of our Celtic forbears who kept the light of faith burning in times of darkness; discover the pleasures of the Festive Board; promote the charitable dimension to serve the needs of the greater community.
What are "Green Degrees?"
In about 1790 (possibly earlier), “Green Masonry” became separated from the Royal Arch and was known as “Red Cross Masonry;” but by 1810 in some manner not very clear now, the name was changed to “Knight of the Sword”, “Knight of the East” and “Knight of the East and West”.
As time went on, the conferring of these three degrees became the exclusive privilege of the Order of Knights Templar. Some of the oldest Warrants of the commanders covered the conferring of these degrees. They were not generally conferred because they had nothing in common with the Templar Orders. Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the degrees were controlled by the Great Priory of the Order of Knights Templar in Ireland.
The degrees are also worked under the authority of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland. It was the gradual dying of the brethren who were sufficiently versed in Knight Masonry to confer the degrees that first caused alarm early in the Twentieth Century. Candidates for the degrees had to travel far to procure them.
It was visualized that the degrees would eventually die out unless a means to prevent it was taken. The first move was to contact those commanderies whose warrants included these degrees. Some of them were loath to part with their rights. Eventually, the subject was taken up with the Great Priory of Ireland. After some time, that body obtained consent of its preceptories to hand over the conferring of the degrees to the suggested new body. which we now know as the Grand Council of Knight Masons.
In 1922, at a joint meeting of the members of the Great Priory and the Knights Templar, who desired to form the new body was held. A motion passed “that pursuant to report of Committee, all rights and privileges touching the Red Cross Degrees, which are at present vested in the Great Priory be transferred to a Grand Council for these degrees.” The new Grand Council met for its first meeting on 18 June 1923, when it notified the Great Priory that it was then in a position to take over and exercise the rights and privileges with which it was invested.
The first President of the Grand Council was Gerald Black, who received the Degrees on 9 January 1901 in Commercial Priory No. 245, possibly by Gerald Byrne who probably was the last person to confer these degrees in Dublin; it is known that but three Preceptories — Commercial (Dublin), Sharavogue, (Birr) and Shaflesbury (Belfast) were conferring the “Red Cross Degrees” at the turn of the century. Thus we have a Grand Council of Knight Masons, for all intents and purposes appointed by the Great Priory of Ireland.
Knight Masonry was introduced in the United States on 20 May 1936 when the Grand Council in Ireland chartered three councils in North Carolina under a Provincial Grand Superintendent. Seven additional councils were chartered by the Provincial Grand Superintendent. The councils in the United States formed the Grand Council of Knight Masons of the United States of America in 1967.
The Grand Council in Dublin recognised this Grand Council of the U.S.A. two years later. All councils chartered in the U.S. since that time were chartered by the by the Grand Council of the United States. Today, there are 116 councils of Knight Masons in the U.S.A. with many thousands of cousins.
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