Honorary Knights Apotheon
Knighthood honoris causa
The Apotheotic Order may confer the degree of Honorary Knight Apotheon, honoris causa, upon those whose lives or works exemplify its ideals.
The distinction recognises significant contributions to humanity’s creative, cultural, intellectual or spiritual inheritance. Artists, writers, philosophers, historians and those who have preserved the works of others may all be considered. The honour may be conferred posthumously.
There is a single honorary degree. Every recipient receives the same distinction, whatever their fame or the nature of their work, and the citation entered with each name records the reasons for it. The degree stands beside the Order’s fellowship rather than within it, and is not a step toward membership or sworn knighthood.
An honorary knight holds no office in the Order and takes no part in its government. The honour is an act of recognition by the Order; those who receive it in their lifetime accept it freely.
Those upon whom the degree has been conferred are commemorated on the Roll of Honour.
In this way the great makers of the past may take their place within the Order’s own tradition, as exemplars of the sacred faculty it exists to cultivate. The Order’s patron, Hermes Trismegistus, stands apart from the Roll; his place is older.