I. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite – Initiate Sovereign Order – is organized in national territorial Jurisdictions according to the Grand Constitutions of 1786, and it works for the Glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe.
It follows the aims and the principles of Universal Freemasonry and admits only Freemason Masters into its Lodges.
The Brothers belonging to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite must observe the practice of rectitude, the cult of truth, justice and freedom and act with tolerance and wisdom for the progress and wellbeing of the Human Family and each of its members.
The Scottish Rite is laid down in thirty-three initiate grades, to which its members can be progressively elevated according to their capacities and their merits; it operates the proselytism among the Freemason Masters of the symbolic legitimate and regular Freemasonry, which have ascertained the aptitude in the study of initiate values and its grades with respect to the general principles of the Rite.
II. The members of the Rite – as free and correct men – recognize the duty to live honourably, according to the laws of the Country in which they live. They avoid all that may split their Brothers, and try incessantly to find the right way to direct everyone to the Original Principle, source of harmony and brotherhood, for the triumph of the emblem of the Rite “Ordo ab chao” and of the motto “Deus Meumque Jus”.
III. Each territorial Jurisdiction of the Rite is governed, in a sovereign way, by a Supreme Council composed of Sovereign Grand Inspector Generals of 33rd, which is the last grade.
The Supreme Council – depository of the Tradition and Laws of the Rite – detains the exclusive right of legislation, administration and supreme justice of the Rite and the award of the hierarchy grades in its own territory.
IV. Each member of the Rite must be a member of the right and perfect Lodge adherent to the obedience of a Grand Lodge of symbolic traditional Freemasonry, rightly recognized as regular.
V. The Supreme Council does not conform to the legislation, the organization and the administration of the symbolic, traditional and regular Freemasonry, as well as the Lodges that constitute it.
GENERAL REGULATIONS OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL
FIRST TITLE
SUPREME COUNCIL
1st HEAD
1. Corpus juris. – The Supreme Council of the Sovereign Grand Inspector Generals of 33rd and last Grade of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of the Freemasonry for the Italian Masonic Jurisdiction was constituted on 16 March 1805, in virtue of the articles 2 and 3 of the Grand Constitutions of 1786, by Supreme Brother/Alexandre François Auguste, Count of Grasse-Tilly, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of France, with the collaboration of the Supreme Brothers/Paolo Reiner, Jean Baptiste Pierre Julien Pyron and S. Paolo Vidal.
With respect to the Landmarks and the Ancient Duties, the Supreme Council assumes as fundamental regulations:
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the Constitutions and Regulations of 1762;
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the Grand Constitutions of 1786.
