History

The Rectified Scottish Rite (RER), also known as the Order of Beneficient Knights of the Holy City (in French: Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cité Sainte or CBCS) is a Christian masonic rite developed in Lyon, France in 1778.  This Order grew from the Rite of Strict Observance, a chivalric masonic rite that started in Germany and spread in popularity and practice across Europe. Reforms introduced by French mason Jean-Baptiste Willermoz in 1778, combined several initiatory and philosophical systems lead to the birth of the Rectified Scottish Rite. Today, there are regular Great Priories of the CBCS that exist in Switzerland, the United States, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Togo, Austria, Benin and Ivory Coast.

The RER was first attempted to be cultivated in the United States in the 1800’s by Robert Folger, followed in the early 1900’s by a Belgian dentist, musician and freemason named Eduoard Blitz.  Both Folger and Blitz were unable to sustain success in their early attempts at proliferating the system.   The Great Priory of America of the RER was chartered and established in 1934 by authority of the Grand Prieure Independant d’Helvétie to William Moseley Brown and John Raymond Shute II.  Since that time, the Great Priory has promulgated its presence as the sovereign body governing the Rectified Scottish Rite in the United States and internationally accepted as the second oldest regular and recognized Great Priory of the CBCS in the world.