The Grand Orient de France's Freemasons in UK invite you to a conference

Saturday 2nd February, 10am to 12pm

Can Freemasonry be Secular?

Free entry

‘Priest-wrought and law-protected’? Approaches to the History of Secularism and Laïcité in Great Britain
Dr Andrew Prescott   

History of Belgium's Freemasonry Progress and Secularism
Jeffrey Tyssens   

The social impact of French Freemasonry over three centuries: a global approach
Pierre Mollier   

Conway Hall
 
25 Red Lion Square
London WC1R 4RL
 
Tube: Holborn

View Larger Map 		         

For more information:
marihsec@hotmail.com - www.logehiram.com/conf

‘Priest-wrought and law-protected’? Approaches to the History of Secularism and Laïcité in Great Britain
Dr Andrew Prescott    

Laïcité is a French concept which has no exact translation in English. It is a term used to describe the movement to ensure the separation of church and state. The fact that this French word is not used in English might be taken as meaning that the concept has also failed to take root in Britain. However, we nevertheless think of modern Britain as a secular society. In France, Freemasonry has been at the vanguard of the movement for the separation of church and state. In the nineteenth century, a number of British radicals who thought the influence of the church in British life a bad thing were also interested in how far Freemasonry in the French tradition might be used to advance the secularisation of the British society. The best known of these radicals was the atheist Charles Bradlaugh. This paper explores how far the nineteenth-century British free-thought movement was related to parallel movements abroad, and argues that this historic dimension is important in understanding modern issues of multi-culturalism and religious tolerance.

Dr Andrew Prescott
Professor Andrew Prescott trained as a medieval historian, researching the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. From 1979-2000, he was a curator in the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library. The many projects on which he worked at the British Library included the innovative and award-winning Electronic Beowulf. In 2000, Andrew was appointed Founding Director of the Centre for Research into Freemasonry at the University of Sheffield, the first academic centre devoted to the study of Freemasonry to be established in Britain. In 2007, Andrew moved to West Wales, taking up an appointment as Librarian and Director of the Roderic Bowen Research Centre at the University of Wales Lampeter. Andrew's publications include English Historical Documents (1998), Towards the Digital Library (1998), The British Inheritance (2000), the Benedictional of St Aethelwold (2001) and Marking Well (2006).

History of Belgium's Freemasonry Progress and Secularism
Jeffrey Tyssens   

Belgian Freemasonry is a typical example of what is sometimes referred to as “Latin” freemasonry. In its confrontation with Roman Catholic clericalism, Belgian lodges developed a militant anticlerical stance in a early stage and became essential actors in liberal politics and secular counterculture. Eventually, they also became the locus where more radical ideas –socialist or even anarchist– could be discussed. If this political militancy faded away, they retained their character of thought societies with a distinctive secular flavour.

Jeffrey Tyssens
Jeffrey Tyssens teaches contemporary history at Brussels university, where he directs the Interdisciplinary Research Group Freemasonry. He has published extensively on the history of public education, Belgian secular society, funerary culture, and finally on the history of Belgian Freemasonry in the 19th and 20th century. He edited the richly illustrated books 'La Sagesse dans l’Allégresse. Deux siècles de franc-maçonnerie à Gand et à Anvers' (2003) and 'Les Trésors du Temple. Le Musée belge de la Franc-maçonnerie' (2006). He is an active freemason since 1990.

The social impact of French Freemasonry over three centuries: a global approach
Pierre Mollier   

One of the most important debates in French masonic historiography, concerns freemasonry's contribution to the broader development of French social and political life. As a large number of masons were active in French politics between 1880 and 1940, historians and the general public in France have tended to assume that masonry has been, and is still, deeply involved with social and political affairs. It is therefore necessary to enquire, when did French freemasonry first develop this image and to what extent did freemasonry's many political adherents carry their masonic ideals into the public arena? Was this the outcome of historical development brought about by historical circumstance, or is there something more deeply rooted within the French craft, inherited from its earliest years?


Pierre Mollier
Pierre Mollier graduated in political sciences from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (M.A.) and in religious sciences from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Université de la Sorbonne, Paris). Head of the Museum-Archives-Library department of the Grand Orient de France, he is editor of the Masonic historical journal Renaissance Traditionnelle and deputy general-secretary of Institut d’Etudes et de Recherches Maçonniques (IDERM), the French academic centre for Masonic researches. He is specialised in the history of Masonic rituals and symbolism, in this field he published more than 20 papers, among them 'Chivalric imaginary and Freemasonry in the XVIIIth century', 'Small Treaty of Masonic Heraldry', 'New light on the “Patent Morin”', 'Contribution to the history of a masonic “high degree” in the XVIIIth century: the Knight of the Sun' , 'The Rose-Croix and Christianism', ...

 

 

Three centuries of history
The Grand Orient de France is the oldest and largest Masonic Order on mainland Europe. Created in 1728 as the Première Grande Loge de France, it acquired its current name and status in 1773. It thus began at the same time as the appearance of other lodges appeared (just before the French Revolution, it still included among its Grand Officers the brethren Puisieux, who had been Master of Lodges as early as 1729!). Today, the Grand Orient has 44,000 registered members in more than 1,000 lodges throughout all of mainland France, but also beyond, on every continent. It has also contributed to the revival of Freemasonry in Central and Eastern European countries.

A humanistic commitment
In the tradition of research and emancipation that underlies the Grand Orient de France, the Masonic initiation should transform man in all his dimensions. Even today, it promotes the principles first declared in 1738 by the brethren Chevalier de Ramsay: “Men are not distinguished essentially by the different languages they speak, the clothes they wear, the countries they live in, nor the functions they occupy. The entire world is one large Republic… Our society was first established to revive and spread these essential maxims that are part of mankind’s nature.” The Freemasons of the Grand Orient were among the first craftsmen of the arrival, then the establishment in our country of the Republic, which is now such an inherent part of the French identity. They consider themselves somewhat as the protectors and avant-garde of the Republican regime, which alone can foster the full development of each and every person in Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood. The history of the Grand Orient de France is a series of actions by members who have worked to give substance to these principles.

The freedom of conscience
During the eighteenth century, the Grand Lodges throughout the world decided to recruit not only among Christians, but also to open lodges to men of all religions. During the nineteenth century, the Grand Orient de France went even farther by proposing the Masonic initiation to all men, provided that they respect the “Moral Law” as stated in the Anderson Constitutions. In 1877, to remain “the centre of the union between people who would otherwise remain total strangers,” the Grand Orient abolished the requirement by which its members had to acknowledge the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. This was the beginning of a Freemasonry that accepted believers and non-believers, and left members completely free to pursue their own conscience and personal research. The Grand Orient considers metaphysical concepts are entirely personal. The lodges of the Grand Orient de France therefore work according to their own orientation, either under the invocation of Universal Freemasonry, or to the glory of the Great Architect of the Universe. They pursue a balanced humanistic approach between a reflection on the society and the initiatory work.

Central axis of French Freemasonry
From the very first, the Grand Orient de France intended to be the federating body for French Freemasonry. Up through the Second World War, in fact, it numbered nearly two-thirds of the French Masons. Today, it is the only large traditional Order to maintain friendly relations with all the other Orders, including mixed and feminine orders, to which it recognizes full Masonic legitimacy.

Initiation
Honed over the centuries, the symbolic language of the rites tends toward the universal and allow members to come together, far from the restrictions of everyday life and beyond usual divisions. The Masonic brotherhood, of which the lodge is the crucible, is a place of questioning and debate among well-intentioned men, regardless of their beliefs. The confrontation of differences with the aim of understanding what constitutes the unity of man is therefore one of the keys to the initiation process. The initiatory dimension is the essential tool that allows the Mason to discover a meaning to his existence and to transmit this meaning into that of humanity striving toward emancipation. In the Masonic world, the French Rite —in fact the French version of the rite of the Grand Lodge of London exported to Paris in the 1720s— is today the most widely practiced rite. But all the other rites that have marked the history of the Order: the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (1804), the Rectified Scottish Rite (1776), the Rite of Memphis-Misraïm (1813) and the York Rite (1817), all found their place within the Order during its long history. These rites are designed as tools to attain knowledge and are all now practiced within the Grand Orient.