Contacting A Foreign Grand Lodge

For those of us in the US, that would be any Grand Lodge outside of our State

Freemasonry has existed since time immemorial. But, our particular form of Masonic government has been around for just a bit more than three hundred years.

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Over those three hundred years, our Craft has developed rules and protocols for Masonic governance and relations.

One of those protocols, and an important one is as follows:

A Mason can not contact a foreign Grand Lodge, nor a Lodge under a foreign Jurisdiction directly.

For example, if you are a Washington Freemason, and you want to contact a Lodge in London for whatever reason, you can’t just email them. That is a violation of very long standing Masonic protocol. Likewise, if you are a Washington Mason, you can’t just be shooting an email off to the Grand Lodge of Ohio.

What needs to be done instead, is to work with the Grand Secretary. Write your letter to that Lodge in London, or that other Grand Lodge, and ask the Grand Secretary to send it on your behalf. He will then send it to his counterpart, who will get it where it needs to go.

Why is this the protocol?

Because the foreign Grand Lodge, or Lodge, has no possible way of knowing that you are who you say you are, or that you are indeed a Freemason otherwise.

When the communication flows through the Grand Secretaries, then everyone can know that it is indeed Masons dealing with each other.

There are, two, but only two, exceptions to this protocol:

-If you are physically in the other Jurisdiction’s territory, you can reach out directly. In other words, if you are in London, you can reach out to a London Lodge. But you can’t directly reach out until you are physically there.

-If you communicate through the Grand Secretary, and receive a response, then you are free to directly follow-up that communication with the person that responded to you.

Why am I writing about this today?

Because I’m seeing a lot of evidence on Social Media over the past few days indicating that loads of Masons don’t understand how this is supposed to work.

In one post about a fairly large news story about a Mason who was engaging in clearly un-masonic conduct, Masons were loudly advocating that all the Brothers in a quite large online group write to the man’s Grand Lodge demanding that he be expelled in order to protect and preserve the reputation of our Craft.

In another post a Mason from a Grand Lodge in North America was complaining, loudly, that he keeps writing to a Grand Lodge in Europe, and they won’t write him back.

Both of these posts indicate that the Brothers making them have no idea about how communications between Grand Jurisdictions actually work.

In short, if you want to communicate with a Grand Lodge other than your own, or a Lodge belonging to a Grand Lodge other than your own, either work through your Grand Secretary to get it done, or wait until you are physically in that other Grand Lodge’s territory. That’s the only way the Grand Lodge or Lodge on the other end of your communication can ensure that you are indeed a Freemason.

When I was a brand spankin’ and shiny new Mason, my Lodge taught me this. Reflecting on it today however, I realize that I haven’t seen this taught to new Masons in a very long time. I’ve certainly forgotten to let the new Masons I’ve mentored through the Degrees know about this particular protocol.

We need to change this. We need to make sure that our new Masons understand this. Doing so will prevent hard feelings and embarrassment.