History & Relation to the Craft
This is an order in Freemasonry, closely associated with Craft Freemasonry.
The first documented evidence of a ‘Royal Arch’ comes from Ireland in 1743; it seems likely that this was an ‘added extra’ worked within craft lodges in England, Ireland and Scotland for many years. Thus it came to be regarded, by the Antients in England, as a fourth degree in Freemasonry.
The Moderns, on the other hand, do not appear to have officially recognised the degree at all (with a few exceptions), leading in due course, to completely separate Royal Arch Chapters.
These differences were partially resolved at the Union of the Grand Lodges in 1813, by a compromise: the new United Grand Lodge of England declared the Royal Arch to be an official and accepted part of ‘Pure and Antient Freemasonry’.
In December 2003 the United Grand Lodge of England acknowledged and pronounced the status of the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch to be “an extension to, but neither a superior nor a subordinate part of, the degrees which precede it”.
Whilst the Royal Arch is, therefore, an integral part of Freemasonry and interwoven with the Craft, it is organised as a separate Order, distinct from the Craft degrees, the teachings of which it completes. The three main Lodges in Portugal have Royal Arch Chapters attached.
In the beginning…
Since St. Patrick´s Day, March 17th, 1990, when the Rt. Hon Lord Farnham consecrated Prince Henry The Navigator Lodge nº 9360, regular freemasonry has been practised in Portugal as part of the United Grand Lodge of England. The Lodge was consecrated in the middle of the Algarve, under the masonic authority of the District Grand Lodge of Gibraltar, the oldest District Grand Lodge in the United Grand Lodge of England. The old and the new coming together to fulfil the aspirations of so many expatriate English freemasons living in Portugal.
By 1990 English freemasonry was not the only regular freemasonry in Portugal, Dr. Fernando Teixeira had earlier taken a number of Portuguese freemasons out of the irregular Grand Orient Lusitano in order to practise regular freemasonry. In June 1990 the Grande Loge Nationale Française constituted these as one of their overseas District Grand Lodges, which later became the Grande Loja Regular de Portugal, with Dr. Teixeira as the first Grand Master.
English freemasonry grew steadily. There are now four English Lodges and three Royal Arch Chapters, operating across the Algarve and in the Greater Lisbon area.
In June 1995 UGLE took its Lodges and Chapters out of the District Grand Lodge of Gibraltar and constituted them as an autonomous overseas Inspectorate, under the jurisdiction and authority of a Grand Inspector, Very Worshipful Brother Richard Derrick Beardsley MA (Oxon). The Group of Lodges in Portugal was born.
- VW Bro. Anthony Thomas Jordan was confirmed as the Grand Inspector on January 1st, 2003.
- On 17th January 2011 VW Bro. Robert Scott Levitt was confirmed as the new Grand Inspector.
- On 18th January 2024 VW Bro. Pierre John Frederik Caeiro was invested with his Chain and Jewel of Office by RW Bro. D. Tilbury District Grand Master of Gibraltar.