New Grand Master for Ireland

On Thursday 22 November, 2001, at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth Street, Dublin, MW Bro. Eric N. Waller, former Provincial Grand Master of Wicklow and Wexford, was installed as Ireland’s new Grand Master. The meeting was so well attended that many had to watch the proceedings as relayed via a video link-up. Having taken the Chair, the new Grand Master proceeded to install MW Bro. George Dunlop, the Provincial Grand Master of Londonderry and Donegal, as Deputy Grand Master and MW Bro. William Mawhinney, the Provincial Grand Master of Down, as the new Assistant Grand Master. The meeting ended with a Gala Dinner at Jurys Hotel in Dublin where the Brethren were joined by their wives and partners.
    Bro. Eric Waller’s masonic career began in 1960 when he was initiated in the Prince of Wales Lodge, No. 222, and ten years later served as its Master. After spending five years as Deputy of the Province of Wicklow and Wexford he was, in 1991, appointed as Provincial Grand Master until on 6 October last year, when he was nominated as the national Grand Master.
    In the autumn issue of the Irish masonic magazine, Metro Mason, Bro. Waller stressed the need for Irish Freemasonry to differentiate itself "from other organisations on this island and beyond, who share a similar structure but hold very different beliefs". He holds that masonry has a positive message to communicate – and fervently believes that "Freemasonry must be a part of society" or else it will simply fuel "suspicion fed on ignorance". We can no longer adopt a sort of "wait and see" approach in the hope that things will sort themselves out, he said, rather, "we should be increasingly proactive and outwardly focused".

Photographic Exhibition of Grand Lodge of Russia in Istanbul

In December 2001, the day after the General Assembly of the Grand Lodge of Turkey, a photographic exhibition of the history of the Grand Lodge of Russia was inaugurated in the exhibition hall of Freemasons’ Hall, Istanbul, by the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Turkey, Ahmet Örs. Also present were the Russian Grand Master, George Dergachev and Grand Secretary, Alexander Kondykov along with Andrey Serkov who has compiled a 3000 word Masonic dictionary in Russian.
    Russian Freemasonry was very influential at the court of Catherine the Great but after the French Revolution it entered into a cyclic existence of persecution and permission. Freemasonry became very influential: thirty Lodges took part in the organisation of the March 1917 Revolution and all the members of the interim Kerensky Government were Freemasons. There are signs that a clandestine Freemasonry was periodically active during the Communist regime. The present Grand Lodge of Russia was consecrated by the Grande Loge Nationale Française (GLNF) in 1994. They are still small, having today about 250 members in seven lodges.

Masonic Art of Czech Painter Re-discovered

A unique cache of artworks by the Czech artist and Freemason, Alphonse Mucha, has recently been unearthed. They had been hidden by a Czech family for sixty years through the Nazi and Communist regimes. The find includes paintings, jewels designed for Czech lodges, and a number of black and white photographs from the 1920s. The discovery was unveiled for the first time last November by Jacques Huyghebaert, a dedicated Mucha enthusiast, who showed photographs of the pieces to delegates at the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre in London, who were attending the Centre’s third international conference on "The Visual Arts and Freemasonry". Since the conference, further pieces designed by Mucha have been discovered at the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Freemason’s Hall, London.
    Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) is probably the most famous exponent of the Art Nouveau style which enjoyed enormous popularity in the early years of the twentieth century. As a young painter, he spent over twenty years in Paris where he gained fame and wealth, and created an extraordinary series of jewels for the Parisian goldsmith, Fouquet. It was in Paris, in 1989, that he was initiated into Freemasonry. In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, being an ardent Czech Nationalist, Mucha returned to his native country and actively participated in the construction of Czechoslovakia, newly born from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian empire. There in Prague, he helped found the first Czech lodge and in 1922, received the 33º of the Supreme Council of Czechslovakia.
    As a painter and sculptor, Mucha focused on symbolic and allegorical works which were typically inspired by patriotic and historic themes, and much of his work is permeated with elaborate symbolism. Apart from his various masonic creations, he also created stained glass windows for the city’s cathedral and designed the country’s first banknotes and postage stamps. He died in 1939, sick and in despair, only a few short weeks after his beloved homeland had fallen to the Nazis.

New Grand Master for Israel

On 29th January 2002, MW Bro. Chaim Henry Gehl was installed as the new Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the State of Israel. The ceremony was conducted in a specially consecrated hall at the Sharon Hotel in Herzlia, a seaside resort ten miles north of Tel Aviv. A number of masonic dignitaries attended, including the Grand Master and Past Grand Master of the District of Columbia, Washington DC, together with representatives from the United Grand Lodges of Germany, the National Grand Lodge of France and the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy.
    Bro. Chaim Gehl was born in Tel Aviv on 4 June 1943, the son of a former Deputy Grand Master of Israel, MW Bro. Martin Gehl. He was educated in England, at Whittingham College in Brighton. After his military service in the Israeli Air Force he continued his studies at the University of Sheffield where he earned a degree in Engineering in 1969. Bro. Chaim has worked in England, Germany, and Israel in various engineering and managerial roles as well as in the diamond trade. He currently works as a Director in the family business. He was initiated in Bezaleel Lodge, No. 20, in Tel Aviv, serving as its Master in 1987 and was awarded the 33º of the Ancient and Accepted Rite in 1992.
    Next year the Grand Lodge of the State of Israel will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. It is a country which can boast lodges working in eight languages, Hebrew, Arabic, English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish and Romanian. Membership is drawn from a wide variety of ethnic, religious and social backgrounds, and in a region otherwise dominated by ancient tensions, it is encouraging to note that in 1982 the Grand Master of Israel was an Arab lawyer.

Tomb of the Unknown Mason in Texas

On 12 June 1998, the remains of a Caucasian male were discovered in El Paso, Texas, during a road construction project. The skeleton was unearthed in a wooden coffin which had almost completely decomposed. Immediately the Texas Department of Transportation archaeologists were called in, together with the El Paso Medical Examiner’s Office, who ascertained that the remains were at least 100 years old. The investigation then passed to the Anthropology Research Centre at the University of Texas, who suggested that the grave had originally been part of a cemetery which had been relocated to this site in 1868 before being moved again to the existing Concordia Cemetery in El Paso. The grave is thought to have been missed in the later move and interestingly, the original cemetery was, in fact, a masonic cemetery located next to a masonic lodge. Investigators therefore concluded that the remains were of a long-deceased Texas Freemason. Dr. H. Gill-King, Director of the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Human Identification at the University of North Texas and a member of Washington Lodge in Richardson, Texas, was requested to examine the remains. He determined that they belonged to a "wiry" Caucasian man approximately forty years old, five feet nine inches tall, of slender build, who had evidently been a horseman with a strong handgrip, who died around 1858.
    As the remains were presumed to be those of a mason, Dr. King contacted the Grand Lodge of Texas, who decided to re-inter the body in a masonic ceremony. Consequently, a masonic memorial service was held at the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Haltom City, Texas, and a tombstone was erected inscribed with the words, "Lovingly reburied by his brethren, The Masons of Texas".

New Funding for Masonic Research: OVN

A new funding venture called OVN has recently been launched in the Netherlands which aims to provide financial assistance to students of Freemasonry. The foundation not only aims to make research grants available to students and scholars, but also aims to participate in the realisation of publications, exhibitions and congresses.
    According to its chairwoman, Andrea Kroon, MA, Freemasonry "has had a great influence on European culture and masonic ideas are much in evidence throughout the fields of literature, the arts, science, and politics". Today Freemasonry is studied at two academic chairs in The Netherlands: the chair for "Freemasonry as an intellectual current and a socio-cultural European phenomenon" at the University of Leiden, and the chair for "History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents" at the University of Amsterdam.
    The foundation of both these chairs has helped to lift the "taboo" which, until recently, hampered the study of Freemasonry, and an increasing number of scholars are becoming aware of the movement’s considerable cultural influence. However, in spite of the increased awareness, "it is… vital that funds are made available to support academic research in this field". This is where the OVN aims to help. An independent academic recommendation board has been established that includes Professors Antoine Faivre (Sorbonne University), Wouter Hanegraaf (University of Amsterdam), Andrew Prescott (University of Sheffield), Robert Jan Van Pelt (Waterloo University, Ontario), Margaret Jacob (UCLA), José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli (Zaragoza University) and Helmut Reinalter (University of Innsbruck). For information or donations, contact OVN Secretary, Mrs. M. Bax, PO Box 92004, 1090 AA Amsterdam, The Netherlands, stichingovn@yahoo.com