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BACK NEXT Summer 2008 Issue 45 Letter from the Editor Grand Lodge News News and Views On The Level International News Beyond the Craft Perambulating the Lodge Masonic Dining and Celebration Interview: The Grand Chancellor The Orator Walking the Way of Saint James Abd el-Kader: Algerian Nationalist and Freemason Province of Cambridgeshire Library & Museum Brother Lightfoote's Journal Review: Committed to the Flames Review: The Mythology of Secret Societies Review: The Dawn of Astrology Letters to the Editor Internet Library & Museum of Freemasonry Grand Lodge Quarterly Communication Convocation of Supreme Grand Chapter RMBI Masonic Samaritan Fund Grand Charity RMTGB Canon Richard Tydeman: Looking unto the Rock Copyright 1997-2008 Grand Lodge Publications Ltd Designed and Maintained by: Cyberpoint Limited

FREEMASONRY TODAY Western Europe A Freemason Walks the Way of Saint James For any one who enjoys walking, the way of Saint James is a fairly compelling challenge. It ranks among the greatest of pilgrimages. And it goes back a long time. Indeed, the faithful have been walking from Le Puy-en-Velay in central France to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain for well over a thousand years : since somewhere around AD 835 when a peasant found the mortal remains of Saint James - Iago - in a field - a ‘campo’ - with the aid ... Masonic Renaissance in Italy Italian Freemasonry had an involvement in politics from the very first, from the time when Garibaldi, a Freemason, achieved Italian unification in 1861, and the Grand Orient of Italy has maintained that principle. But in recent years an unfortunate reputation for secrecy and manipulation has erupted, in particular as a result of the P2 scandal. The principles of the Grand Orient were not viewed favourably by all Freemasons, with the result that ... The Spirit Rising over Dresden It was the light that really moved us. The soft, warm autumn glow that characterises rural landscape as well as city architecture in central Europe came flooding in from the west, bathing the side of the dome of this most beautiful of all churches, the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady. A church, my wife and I had to remind ... Not A Crime, But A Sin? For the first time in twenty years, Catholic priests and laymen met in an open and mostly friendly discussion with a representative of German masonry in November 2003. There has been a long silence between the Catholic Church and masonic institutions in Germany since the Conference of German Bishops pronounced an unequivocal ban on Catholic membership in all masonic lodges in 1980. At the time, this came as a surprise to German Brethren, as a decade of seemingly friendly and open discussions ... Band of Brothers I was privileged to be in Normandy for the sixtieth anniversary of the D-Day landings. I trust that the vast majority of readers will be well acquainted with what happened on 6 June 1944. The operation was, quite simply, the greatest feat of arms in history. The logistics are almost incomprehensible: an armada of five thousand ships, eleven thousand aircraft and, most importantly, a hundred and thirty-three thousand men delivered to ... Freemasonry and the Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War was really a foretaste of a much larger conflict to come, but in many respects was no less savage, as terrible atrocities were committed on both sides. As so often happens in times of violent flux the situation polarized, the moderates were pushed aside, and the extremists gained the upper hand. On 15 May 1937 Largo Caballero (a Freemason) resigned as Prime Minister, and Dr Juan Negrin (a non-mason) ... Freemasonry and the Spanish Civil War Throughout its long and eventful history Freemasonry has often been attacked and its members persecuted. Yet today many people are unaware that the movement’s darkest hour occurred little over half a century ago, in Spain. Freemasonry first arrived in Spain in 1728, when the English Duke of Wharton established a lodge in Madrid. Although frequently persecuted, Spanish Freemasonry thrived in the nineteenth century ... 275 Years of Freemasonry Celebrated in France How do you get more than 130,000 Freemasons, men and women, belonging to more than ten different rival jurisdictions, each passionate about the claims of his or her own masonic system, to act together in concord and brotherly love? French Freemasonry found the answer to this question in June this year, when over a thousand Freemasons gathered together in Lyon to celebrate 275 years of Freemasonry in France, and at the same time to assert that the values, culture and aims of Freemasonry united them more strongly ... The Pope and the Spy Towards the end of January 1731 the London government received a frenzied report from Rome. Its author was a certain Baron von Stosch, a resident in the Holy city, and a personal favourite of King George II. Stosch reported that about 10 o’clock the previous Sunday he had been returning home, when suddenly his carriage had been surrounded near Prince Ruspoli’s palace by three masked assailants brandishing muskets ... The Mysterious Templar Carvings of Chinon Castle On the evening of March 18th 1314, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, was cruelly burned to death on a small island in the Seine, in Paris. Sharing his pain and death was the Templar Preceptor of Normandy, Geoffroy de Charney. It was the last brutal act in an enigmatic drama. The dramatic events had begun seven years earlier when, at dawn on 13th October 1307, the king of France ordered all the Templars ... French Freemasonry and the Resistance The first active ‘Résistant’ shot during the Second World War by the German authorities was a Freemason. Brother José Roig was executed at Ivry, 1st August 1941, for supporting, and recruiting for, General de Gaulle and the Free French Government in exile. The French Government’s Act of 13th August 1940 ... El Escorial High on a granite esplanade at the foot of Sierra de Guadarama outside Madrid, stands an imposing edifice - the monastery of San Lorenzo El Escorial. Intended simultaneously as a Palace, basilica, mausoleum and monastery, this impressive architectural mass was constructed at the behest of King Philip II, at the height of the Spanish Empire. It was from here that the doomed invasion of England was plotted - the Spanish Armada of 1588. However ... Anti-Masonic Laws in Occupied France Traditionally, French anti-masonic sentiments were based on the two themes of politics and religion. Freemasonry’s enemies were right-wing anti-Republicans and the Catholic Church. In no other Occupied country were the Germans given so much assistance in their anti-masonic policies. After the German victory in the French campaign, the Armistice was signed on the 22 June 1940 and France was divided into Occupied and Unoccupied zones ... Masonic Symbology and Actvities in the Most Serene Republic of Venice The Palazzo dei Dogi (Doge’s Palace) in Venice is undoubtedly a magnificent structure. Begun in the ninth century, its construction developed together with the Most Serene Republic until it attained its present form in the mid 1400s. The close bond between the Basilica of S.Mark and the Palace, both ducal buildings, saw the former as metaphor for the Holy Sepulchre and the latter for ... ... Those Who Might Otherwise Have Remained at a Perpetual Distance It was the first of our three Grand Principles, Brotherly Love, which conciliates true friendship between men who would otherwise find little in common, that immediately appealed to me as a very new initiate. Quite early in my masonic career I experienced an exceptional example of this. Casual contacts between Winchester and the German City of Giessen must have begun during the fifties or early sixties before developing into a more formal arrangement. However, my first visit only took place in 1973 when, as Mayor of Winchester, I had the pleasure of presenting ... A Mason in Prague The spirits of centuries gone by are never far away. One of them, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1576 to 1612, was celebrated last summer with a remarkable series of exhibitions relating to his life and reign. One contained objects from his famous cabinet of curiosities. Others were devoted to his patronage of scientists (Kepler, Tycho Brahe) and the arts, both visual and occult - there were probably more alchemists, cabalists and hermeticists in Rudolfine Prague than anywhere else in history. The occult aspects of Prague's history were also the subject of a magnificent exhibition entitled Opus Magnum, mounted under the initiative of Vladislav Zadrobílek ... A Mason in Hamburg The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, where I live, is known as the most English of German cities. There’s an English theatre where you can see Noël Coward plays. English slogans are ubiquitous (“business lunch”, “the Fitness Lady Studio”, “You must see Evita”). And there’s a certain reticence about the Hamburgers which has more in common with Albion than with their compatriots in, say, Bavaria or the Rhineland. There have been trading links with England for centuries, so it is not surprising that masonic links go back a long way as well. When I first moved to Hamburg just over three years ago, it was by great good luck that my first masonic encounter ...   Western Europe © Grand Lodge Publications Ltd 1997-2008