York Rite

The York Rite is one of the two great systems of additional Masonic degrees, and the most common misunderstanding of it is to picture a single body: it is in fact a grouping of separate organisations worked in sequence.

Three bodies, one journey

The York Rite comprises several distinct organisations offering degrees that continue the Masonic journey beyond the three degrees of the craft lodge: the Royal Arch chapters, the Cryptic councils, and, in most jurisdictions, the Commanderies of Knights Templar, each governed separately and conferring its own degrees. A member proceeds through them in order, and membership requires that he first be a Master Mason. The Templar bodies are distinctive in requiring a Christian profession, where the craft lodge does not.

An American assembling of English degrees

The degrees themselves grew from older workings in England, and were organised into their present grouping, particularly in the United States, during the nineteenth century, which is why the name York, referring to the legendary early history of English Masonry, attaches to a system largely arranged in America. It stands alongside the Scottish Rite as one of the two main routes for additional Masonic degrees, the two differing in structure and emphasis rather than in rank.

The York Rite is a route rather than an order, and an American candidate normally works three separate bodies in sequence. The Royal Arch Chapter completes the story the craft degrees leave unfinished, recovering what was lost in the third degree. The Council of Royal and Select Masters, the Cryptic degrees, fills in the concealment of that secret. The Commandery confers the orders of Knight Templar and its companions.

The Commandery is where the rite differs sharply from craft Masonry. It requires a Christian profession, where a craft lodge requires only belief in a supreme being and admits Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others without distinction. A Mason may therefore be barred from the Commandery while being perfectly regular in his own lodge. That is a real constraint and it is often left out of summaries.

The naming causes constant confusion. In England the Royal Arch is attached to craft Masonry as its completion and is not part of a separate rite, the Cryptic degrees are worked under a different body, and the Masonic Knights Templar are separate again. The York Rite as a single sequence is largely an American arrangement, and its name refers to the legendary founding of English Masonry at York rather than to any historical connection with the city.