As a result of the fact that I’m all over social media as a Mason, I get a lot of inquiries from men in foreign lands, asking me how they can become Freemasons.
With a bit of digging, I’m almost always able to direct them to a local lodge, no matter where they are in the world. The Grand Lodges of England and Ireland both maintain good public lists of foreign jurisdictions that they recognize, and in foreign lands without a Grand Lodge, often either they or the Grand Lodge of Scotland have lodges.
But this isn’t always the case. It wasn’t yesterday when a man from a foreign land asked me about a lodge local to him. I checked the British Isles, and no, none of those mother Grand Lodges recognized a Grand Lodge in his country, nor could I find any Lodges Chartered by them.
Not wanting to abandon an honest seeker, I looked a bit further, to another Grand Lodge that is world wide in scope, the Grand Orient of France.
Yes indeed. The GOF does recognize a Grand Lodge in this man’s country, and it has Lodges operating under GOF Charters in his country as well.
With no other option available for this man, I sent him off to the Grand Orient of France.
Here in the United States the fact that our Grand Lodges don’t recognize the GOF as Regular is a far off and distant problem. It’s also a problem that has been around for an extremely long time.
We don’t recognize the GOF as Regular because we see that body as having dispensed with an Indispensable Landmark of Freemasonry. That makes good sense.
But, it also does not change the fact that the Grand Orient of France is one of the mother jurisdictions of the world, a jurisdiction that is worldwide in scope and influence.
So, that begs the question. Should we, at some point, look to ways that it might be possible to heal this division within Freemasonry sometime in the future?
I know that it probably seems far fetched that we could ever close the distance between our form of Freemasonry and theirs, but surely the Grand Lodges of the Ancients and the Moderns were at each other’s throats before they worked through their differences and joined together as the United Grand Lodge of England.
“…pure Ancient Masonry consists of three Degrees and no more, viz. those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the Master Mason including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.”
That wording, while painful and strange, allowed for a union of two Grand Lodges, creating a much stronger whole. It shows that differences can be overcome.
So, let’s chat about this difference. Should we, someday, start considering how it can be overcome?
The divide was closed a century ago, thanks to the Great War. Masons, wearing the uniforms of the U.S. armed forces, entered France, and it became untenable to have brethren fighting and dying shoulder to shoulder, but prohibited from sitting together in lodge. So, the Franco-American estrangement was healed. For a time.
The GOF/recognition story is slightly complicated. Most of us Americans believe our grand lodges withdrew recognition because the French turned atheist circa 1870, but the truth is
recognition was pulled during the 1860s because the GOF was chartering lodges in Louisiana, where the GL of Louisiana was established.
Pardon me, but it’s just easier to share a link to my website for an explanation:
I consider the GOdF as the parent of UGLE, as Masonry existed in France before England, and is known to be the oldest Masonic Lodge in Continental Europe. Masonry and our political structure in America, owes a great deal to GOdF, as they were particularly influential in organizing French support for the American Revolution, gaining independence from the British Crown. Benjamin Franklin was a member and master of the GOdF Lodge ‘Les Neuf Soeurs’ (Lodge of the Nine Sisters), were he met many great Masons who laid out the ground work for North America and its Declaration, including Voltaire, Brissot de Warville, and Count St. Germain.
I assume it was not a big deal to have different masonic bodies, as in America it was once thought to have a Grand Lodge of America, before the idea that each state should govern itself, as each state Grand Lodge did not wish to diminish their own authority under one overarching lodge.
I can get why there was an initial beef, with a younger Masonic Lodge of England trying to preside over the older order in France. From what I’ve researched the biggest elephant in the room at the time was over the Jacobite rebellion. Andersons Constitution of Free-masons, was dedicated to its Grand Master, John Montagu (2nd Duke of Montagu), the fifth Grand Master of UGLE. He left the lodge, without ceremony likely because of his Jacobite allegiance. Some books I’ve read say he left UGLE and joined GOdF over the way elections vs appointed seats were being conducted. Others say the Duke of Montagu started an anti-masonry group called the Gormogons, which really carries no weight.
Up until the year 1766, there were other degrees of Masonry in France, outside of the three we have today. One, namely Martinez de Pasqually had inherited a patent, giving him the right to open new lodges, most notably the ‘La Perfection Elus Ecossaise’ (The Elect Scottish Perfection). Along with Louis-Claude de Saint Martin (a.k.a. The Unknown Philosopher) and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz who introduced the Elect Cohen (Priest) degrees, that included secret initiations from the writings of Enoch via Dr. John Dee. From this group of Mason, merged the order of Martinism, Order of the Beneficent of the Holy City, and the Scottish Rites Rose Croix degree, along with a few Gnostic Churches.
I would love to see a union of GOdF and UGLE! Even more so, learn more from these French Masonic degrees that have been kept under the shadow for so long.
An interesting fact from my mother jurisdiction: after a long imperial ban (since 1795 by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor from the Habsburg house) in the second half of the 19th century the Hungarian Freemasonry had a revival. After a few lodges have been formed and recognized by London... a new Grand Lodge of the St John Order has been instituted in 1870. In American lingo that means Craft/Blue lodges working in the 3 degree [Johannisloge, in German]. A year later, in 1871 a Grand Orient of Hungary was established, working in the 33 degrees of the AASR - all 33 degrees [as they do in many jurisdictions even today, conferring even 1-3* using that ritual!].
After a few years of competing and rivalry... in 1886 the two bodies decided to "amalgamate", to have a union. Thus the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Hungary has been born, and the GL recognized by the UGLE and the Anglo-American MAsonic world, kept the same name even the revival in 1989.
Allegedly, such kind of union between "French style" and "Anglo style" grand bodies in the same land is unique in the history of Masonry.
I have a lot of material on different hard drives waiting for me to make a comprehensive English presentation about it (the documents are mainly in Hungarian and sporadically in German).
The divide was closed a century ago, thanks to the Great War. Masons, wearing the uniforms of the U.S. armed forces, entered France, and it became untenable to have brethren fighting and dying shoulder to shoulder, but prohibited from sitting together in lodge. So, the Franco-American estrangement was healed. For a time.
The GOF/recognition story is slightly complicated. Most of us Americans believe our grand lodges withdrew recognition because the French turned atheist circa 1870, but the truth is
recognition was pulled during the 1860s because the GOF was chartering lodges in Louisiana, where the GL of Louisiana was established.
Pardon me, but it’s just easier to share a link to my website for an explanation:
https://themagpiemason.blogspot.com/2019/09/weird-fact-wednesday-amity-with-grand.html?m=0
Please check it out and look for an amazing piece of information from Joseph Fort Newton on the atheism thing.
I consider the GOdF as the parent of UGLE, as Masonry existed in France before England, and is known to be the oldest Masonic Lodge in Continental Europe. Masonry and our political structure in America, owes a great deal to GOdF, as they were particularly influential in organizing French support for the American Revolution, gaining independence from the British Crown. Benjamin Franklin was a member and master of the GOdF Lodge ‘Les Neuf Soeurs’ (Lodge of the Nine Sisters), were he met many great Masons who laid out the ground work for North America and its Declaration, including Voltaire, Brissot de Warville, and Count St. Germain.
I assume it was not a big deal to have different masonic bodies, as in America it was once thought to have a Grand Lodge of America, before the idea that each state should govern itself, as each state Grand Lodge did not wish to diminish their own authority under one overarching lodge.
I can get why there was an initial beef, with a younger Masonic Lodge of England trying to preside over the older order in France. From what I’ve researched the biggest elephant in the room at the time was over the Jacobite rebellion. Andersons Constitution of Free-masons, was dedicated to its Grand Master, John Montagu (2nd Duke of Montagu), the fifth Grand Master of UGLE. He left the lodge, without ceremony likely because of his Jacobite allegiance. Some books I’ve read say he left UGLE and joined GOdF over the way elections vs appointed seats were being conducted. Others say the Duke of Montagu started an anti-masonry group called the Gormogons, which really carries no weight.
Up until the year 1766, there were other degrees of Masonry in France, outside of the three we have today. One, namely Martinez de Pasqually had inherited a patent, giving him the right to open new lodges, most notably the ‘La Perfection Elus Ecossaise’ (The Elect Scottish Perfection). Along with Louis-Claude de Saint Martin (a.k.a. The Unknown Philosopher) and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz who introduced the Elect Cohen (Priest) degrees, that included secret initiations from the writings of Enoch via Dr. John Dee. From this group of Mason, merged the order of Martinism, Order of the Beneficent of the Holy City, and the Scottish Rites Rose Croix degree, along with a few Gnostic Churches.
I would love to see a union of GOdF and UGLE! Even more so, learn more from these French Masonic degrees that have been kept under the shadow for so long.
An interesting fact from my mother jurisdiction: after a long imperial ban (since 1795 by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor from the Habsburg house) in the second half of the 19th century the Hungarian Freemasonry had a revival. After a few lodges have been formed and recognized by London... a new Grand Lodge of the St John Order has been instituted in 1870. In American lingo that means Craft/Blue lodges working in the 3 degree [Johannisloge, in German]. A year later, in 1871 a Grand Orient of Hungary was established, working in the 33 degrees of the AASR - all 33 degrees [as they do in many jurisdictions even today, conferring even 1-3* using that ritual!].
After a few years of competing and rivalry... in 1886 the two bodies decided to "amalgamate", to have a union. Thus the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Hungary has been born, and the GL recognized by the UGLE and the Anglo-American MAsonic world, kept the same name even the revival in 1989.
Allegedly, such kind of union between "French style" and "Anglo style" grand bodies in the same land is unique in the history of Masonry.
I have a lot of material on different hard drives waiting for me to make a comprehensive English presentation about it (the documents are mainly in Hungarian and sporadically in German).