Twelfth Degree: The Mediterranean Pass and the Order of Malta

The Mediterranean Pass is conferred as a prerequisite to becoming a Knight of Malta. The English ritual states: "The Mediterranean Pass is one of the secrets of the Degree of Knight of St Paul".

This degree is close to being a true 'side degree', in that a small group (usually three) of members of the degree take the candidate "to one side" and simply communicate the secrets of the degree to him, without actually working the ceremonial ritual of the degree.  But a Chapter of the Order is formally opened and closed by the presiding officer before and after the secrets are communicated.

The Order of Malta is conferred before the Templar Degree. The ceremony for conferring the degree contains a mixture of masonic tradition, historical accounts of the Order of St John, moral teaching, and the communication of modes of recognition between members. A series of banners is employed in the ceremony, each representing one of the great battles of the historic medieval Order of St John, whose story is the basis of the moral teachings of the degree.

The Knights of St. John, or Hospitallers of St. John, afterward known as Knights of Rhodes, and finally called Knights of Malta, was a military religious Order, established at about the commencement of the Crusades. 

As early as 1018, some merchants from Amalfi, in Naples, being struck with the misery to which the pilgrims were exposed on their road to the Holy Land, obtained permission of the Caliph of Egypt, to erect a church and build a monastery near the site of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which they dedicated to St. John the Baptist. They entertained all pilgrims that came for devotion and the diseased among them. They became eminent for their devotion, charity and hospitality. St. John the Baptist, being their patron, they were called Brethren Hospitallers of St. John the Baptist of Jerusalem, to distinguish them from the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. 

They took the black habit of the Hermits of St. Augustine, and on the left breast wore a cross of eight points.   The Order of Malta provides a rich historical explanation of the order from 1099 through 1530 and commemorates the significant events in the Order's history.