The Commemorative Order of Saint Thomas of Acon

The Commemorative Order of St. Thomas of Acon is an invitational chivalric and Masonic order. In the United States of America, the Order is governed by the Grand Master’s Council, which warrants local Chapels of the Order. Chapels may be grouped into larger administrative units, known as Provinces, as needs require. The Grand Master’s Council meets annually, generally in conjunction with the Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees for the United States of America.

A candidate for admission must be a subscribing Master Mason in a Craft Lodge in amity with the United Grand Lodge of England, a subscribing Royal Arch Mason in a Royal Arch Chapter, or its equivalent in other countries, in amity with the Supreme Grand Chapter of England and a subscribing Knight Templar, or its equivalent in other countries, in amity with the United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta.

The Order was established in 1974 as a result of twenty years’ research in the Guildhall Library in London by John E. N. Walker, who for many years was the Secretary General of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. The ancient records of the Order, written in medieval French and Latin, had been deposited in the Guildhall Library and escaped the Great Fire of 1666. John spent more than twenty years searching the archives of the Guildhall Library for information about the Order of St. Thomas of Acon, intending initially to write its history. Happily, he discovered the report of the Installation of the Master in 1510, an account so unusual and so typically English, that he felt compelled to revive the Order, albeit Masonically.