Next Meeting: April 29

Gentlemen,

Our next meeting of the G. C. Sanders AMD Council No. 402 will be held at Chappell Hill on Monday, April 29, the 5th Monday in April.

Meet at about 6 PM at Chappell Hill Deli and Bakery for a meal and fellowship.  We will retire to Hubert lodge at about 7 PM.

Be sure to check our website for more information about Allied Masonic Degrees and Masonry such as Our meeting dates for 2019, a calendar and other information.

For your enjoyment, here is a link to a short paper on York Rite: Who, What, Why that you may find suitable for sharing in your blue lodges.

And here is a brief explanation of the AMD from Grand Council of the Order of Allied Masonic Degrees of England and Wales and Districts and Councils Overseas

The vast majority of the ‘additional’ Degrees worked in England in the early part of the nineteenth century originally came under the patronage of Warrants granted by the ‘Antients’, who held that Craft Warrants entitled Lodges to work any Masonic Degree to which they had knowledge and members available who could work it. 

Upon the formation of the United Grand Lodge various groups of Degrees were gradually organized into separate Orders each with their own governing body, and by the end of that century a large number of unrelated Degrees of no direct interest to any grand body was still being worked in different parts of the country. In the late 1870’s it was agreed by the then Grand Secretaries of the Craft, Mark, and Ancient and Accepted Rite to establish a ‘Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees in England and Wales and the Colonies and Dependencies of the British Crown’. The headquarters would be at Mark Masons’ Hall.

It was also agreed that no new body purporting to be a Masonic body could be legally established in England without the consent of the Governing Bodies of the Knights Templar, the Ancient and Accepted Rite, the Mark Masters, the Red Cross of Constantine, the Royal and Select Masters, and the new Grand Council; and that any new body established with such consent should be under the direction of the Grand Council. Thus was born Grand Council, which we know now as the Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees of England and Wales and Districts, and Councils Overseas.

The Order (in Great Britain) has five Degrees; the Degree of St Lawrence the Martyr; the Degree of the Knights of Constantinople; the Degree of Grand Tilers of Solomon; The Red Cross of Babylon and The Holy Order of the Grand High Priest. Every Candidate must be a Mark Master Mason and a Companion of The Holy Royal Arch.

The Texas AMD Association notes that the Allied Masonic Degrees are an invitational organization, and, like Britain, requires membership in the Royal Arch as well as the Symbolic Lodge. Membership is limited to 27 members in a subordinate Council. 

On August 5, 1933, this Grand Council took as its date of formation January 14, 1892, since this date was the beginning of the Allied Masonic Degrees in America with the formation of the Sovereign College of Allied Masonic and Christian Degrees at Richmond, Virginia on April 16, 1932. 

The subsequent establishment of a Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees of the United States of America occurred in Salisbury, North Carolina, and the union of the two bodies was drawn up and entered into July 18, 1933, and was ratified by the North Carolina Grand Council August 5, 1933 and was ratified by the Sovereign College at Norway, Maine August 24, 1933, and became effective as of September 7, 1933.

The degrees comprising the system in our Jurisdiction in the U.S.A. are: 

• the Royal Ark Mariner, 
• Secret Monitor, 
• Knight of Constantinople, 
• Saint Lawrence the Martyr, 
• Architect, 
• Grand Architect, 
• Superintendent, 
• Grand Tilers of Solomon, 
• Master of Tyre, 
• Excellent Master, 
• Installed Sovereign Master, 
• Installed Commander Noah, 
• Red Branch of Eri and 
• Ye Ancient Order of Corks. 

They are conferred in the United States in Councils chartered by the Grand Council serving to perpetuating these degrees to bring together, in small groups, Freemasons who are interested in the advancement of all Masonry, preparing themselves to better serve the Craft through the medium of study and research. By limiting the membership in a Council and securing membership only by invitation, the result is a congenial group able to enjoy full fellowship when meeting together. 

Wherever there is an active Council of Allied Masonic Degrees, it exerts an influence for the betterment of Freemasonry in all the Masonic Bodies. There is no intention on the part of the Allied Masonic Degrees to detract from any organized and established body of Masonry. On the contrary, you will find our members active, beyond the average, in all local Masonic bodies.