Royal Arch Masonry · Degree
Past Master
A degree born of an old constitutional requirement: that only a Master who had presided could be exalted.
Past Master (sometimes called the Virtual Past Master degree) is the second degree conferred in a Royal Arch Chapter. It exists because of an old constitutional idea rather than a legend of its own: in the early years of Royal Arch Masonry, the exaltation was regarded as so closely connected to the governance of the Craft that only a Mason who had actually presided over a lodge, an installed Master, was considered eligible to receive it.
History
Early American Royal Arch regulations carried that requirement forward. The difficulty was practical: it would have excluded every worthy brother who had not yet served as Master of his lodge. Chapters resolved this by conferring a short ceremonial degree, the Virtual Past Master, which qualified the candidate in the constitutional sense without making him a past presiding officer of a lodge. The practice was well established in American chapters by the close of the eighteenth century and remains standard in the York Rite today.
The requirement itself was handled differently elsewhere. In England, Royal Arch membership came to be tied to the Craft degrees alone, and after the Grand Chapter’s 2004 decisions (described on the Chapter page), no installed or presiding requirement applies there. The United States system, working under its own Grand Chapters and the General Grand Chapter, retained the Past Master degree as a distinct step.
The degree also carries genuine instruction of its own: its lessons concern the duties and responsibilities of the chair (presiding, teaching, and serving), which is why it has kept its place rather than becoming a mere formality.
In the York Rite
Past Master is conferred between Mark Master Mason and Most Excellent Master in the Chapter. The full sequence of Capitular degrees is listed on the degree histories page.