The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine

Freemasonry not only preserves the legacy of the Masonic brotherhoods of the Middle Ages, it also commemorates the orders of chivalry. The Knights Templar come immediately to mind, particularly in the higher degrees of the Rectified Scottish Rite, the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and the York Rite. But there are other orders, less well known, that are honoured in certain systems of higher or side degrees of Freemasonry. Such is the case of the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine, which is based on a real existing order, the Constantinian Order of Saint George. What is this Order of the Red Cross of Constantine ? Where does it come from ? And what are the activities and legends of the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine ? 

The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine within chivalric Freemasonry 

We know that the Masonic infatuation with chivalry goes back to Michel de Ramsay's famous speech, of which we have two versions (1736 and 1737). In this speech, Freemasonry was explicitly traced back to the Crusades, during which the Crusaders were said to have hidden their faith under the symbols of Freemasonry. Interest in this legend soon focused on the Templars, whose tragic fate captured the imagination and led to the assumption that they held some fabulous secret. But the Knights of Malta were not to be outdone, for they are found in the York Rite.

The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine is inspired by a much lesser known and less prestigious order: the Sacred and Military Constantinian Order of St George, the existence of which is admittedly unknown to most people. The Order was founded in Venice around 1520 by the Angelo brothers, members of an Albanian noble family who had fled Constantinople when it was taken by the Turks in 1453. The Order was recognised by the Pope in 1545, and the hereditary Grand Mastership belonged to the Comnenes, an important family of Byzantine nobility from whom several Eastern Emperors descended. Through various dynastic changes, the Order eventually became an honorary order of the House of Bourbon-Sicily, where it is currently divided into two branches.

A minor order in the history of chivalry, it is said to have been founded by the Emperor Constantine himself after the discovery of the True Cross, making it the oldest military order in Christendom. As there were no religious or military orders in the Byzantine Empire, this is nothing more than a legend that was taken up by the Masonic version of the Order.

Origin of the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine 

The Masonic Order of the Red Cross of Constantine first appeared in England in 1865. It is sometimes said to have existed in England as early as 1780, but as there are several ancient degrees bearing the title of the Red Cross (such as the Knights of the Red Cross of Babylon, the Irish-Scottish equivalent of the Knights of the East), it is difficult to say. It seems unlikely to us personally that such an anecdotal order as the Constantinian Order of St George would have been of interest to English Freemasons around 1780. On the other hand, the Order as we know it today dates from 1865, at the time of the explosion of French and English occultism, when everything was ripe for the creation of new, often very fanciful orders.

The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine was founded in 1865 by a curious character, Robert Wentworth Little (1838-1878), whom some have not hesitated to describe as a charlatan and a fraud. Born in Dublin in 1838, he emigrated to England in 1855, was initiated as a Freemason in 1861, was very active in the chapters of the Royal Arch and Mark Masonry, and went on to found the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine (1865), the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (1867), the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraïm (1870, dissolved in 1871) and the Ancient Archaeological Order of Druids (1874). We leave it to the reader to judge this meteoric and prolific career, most of whose activities are not based on any serious and verifiable foundation.

Organisation and legends of the Order

The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine counts three degrees (Knight-Mason, Priest-Mason and Prince-Mason) and two additional orders attached to it: the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and the Order of St John the Evangelist. The jewels of the first three degrees are imitated from those of the Constantinian Order of Saint George, which proves that Little knew them.

The legend of the Order goes back to the Emperor Constantine, who is said to have founded it after his victory over the Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 312. According to the commonly accepted legend, the monogram of Christ (Chrism) appeared to Constantine before the battle and he heard a voice telling him 'In Hoc Signum Vinces', by this sign you will conquer. He is said to have made a standard with the chrism (the labarum) and to have had this sign painted on the shields of his soldiers, and it was this sign that won him victory and made him emperor. What connection does this story have with Freemasonry ? None, apart from the fact that the legend read to the recipient of the First Degree tells us that Constantine was initiated into the mysteries of the Collegia Artificium, the colleges of Roman craftsmen, which can be considered a form of Freemasonry before its time.

The Order of the Holy Sepulchre is related to Constantine's Order of the Red Cross. It refers to the knights organised in 1099 by Godfrey of Bouillon into a militia charged with protecting the Holy Places. However, according to the legend of the ritual, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre was actually founded in 329 by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, who had found the True Cross during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

As for the Order of St John the Evangelist, its legend is rather clumsy. It begins by telling us that the Emperor Julian the Apostate ordered the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is historically proven that this emperor, in his attempt to oppose the development of Christianity, which had taken root in Rome since 313, favoured the ancient cults and ordered the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem; but the work was abandoned after his death. The legend of the degree, partly inspired by that of the Royal Arch, relates that during the work the labourers found an underground vault, in which the one who descended discovered a book wrapped in linen, which was none other than the Gospel of John. From this discovery, the Knights deduced that God did not want this reconstruction to take place, since the book presented the destruction of the Temple as a divine decree.

The legend of the Knights of St John the Evangelist reminds us, as does the Ramsay Discourse, that Freemasonry was used by the Crusaders to conceal their secrets. And the legend shows, by way of example, that the story of the death of Hiram was merely a symbolic representation of the death of Christ. So there are many secrets, only to fall back on the most classical of Christian beliefs and claim to have discovered the Gospel of John, even though it has been on display in lodges since the Entered Apprentice degree !

The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine and its two related orders form a very peculiar system with little coherence other than the veneration of the role of the Emperor Constantine and the promotion of an entirely classical and traditional form of Christianity. We can legitimately question the value of its presence among the appendant bodies to Freemasonry, as it does not contribute any specifically Masonic elements. However, the ritual of the Knights of Saint John the Evangelist promises the revelation of the "ultimate objects of Freemasonry": we are far from achieving them !

The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine throughout the world

Organised in Grand Imperial Conclaves, the premier of which is the Grand Imperial Conclave for England and Wales, the Order is now present in around fifty countries and territories. While most have their  Grand Imperial Conclave, 18 depend directly on the English Grand Conclave (in Europe these are Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Romania) and a few on the Scottish Grand Conclave.