What is the Swedish Rite?
The Swedish Rite “is a mixture of the pure Rite of York, the high degrees of the French, the Templarism of the former Strict Observance, and the system of Rosicrucianism.” 1 “The Swedes and Danes deny any derivation from the Strict Observance.” 2 Membership is restricted to Christians. The first regular lodge in Sweden was started in 1735 by Count Axel Wrede-Sparre. It seems to have waned around 1748. In 1752 the lodge “St Jean auxiliaire” started in Stockholm, and in 1753 it was declared by the King to be Grand Lodge for all Swedish craft lodges. The first high-degree “Scottish” lodge was started in 1756 with Carl Friedrich Eckleff as Master. In 1759, Eckleff started the Chapitre Illuminé “L’Innocente” and began constructing a high-degree system which originally had nine degrees but later came to include ten. In 1760, the Swedish Grand Lodge was founded, replacing “St Jean auxilliaire” as Grand Lodge for the Craft. Grand Lodge at that time had no power over the “Scottish” degrees or E
