The Grand Orient of Belgium (French: Grand Orient de Belgique, Dutch: Grootoosten van Belgie; or G.O.B.) is a Belgian cupola of masonic lodges which is only accessible for men, and works in the basic three symbolic degrees of freemasonry.
Contents
History
The Grand Orient of Belgium was founded in 1833, three years after the independence of Belgium. The Grand Orient joins the Grand Orient of France and other Continental jurisdictions in not requiring initiates to believe in a Supreme Being (Great Architect of the Universe). This meant that in the 1870s the Orient broke with the United Grand Lodge of England.
In 1921, the Grand Orient of Belgium was a founding and influential member within the International Masonic Association. It remained a member of this international alliance until 1950. During World War II, members of the Grand Orient of Belgium founded the Lodge Liberté chérie in a Nazi concentration camp and the Lodge l'Obstinée in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.
In 1959 five lodges of the Grand Orient of Belgium founded the Grand Lodge of Belgium in order to regain recognition by the United Grand Lodge of England which was lost in 1979. The Grand Orient of Belgium became a founding member of the Centre de Liaison et d'Information des Puissances maçonniques Signataires de l'Appel de Strasbourg (CLIPSAS) in 1961, but left in 1996 with the Grand Orient of France over disputes about the place of religious belief. In 1989 the Grand Orient of Belgium, the Grand Lodge of Belgium, the Women's Grand Lodge Of Belgium and the Belgian Federation of Le Droit Humain signed an agreement of mutual recognition. In 1998, these anti-clerical and atheistic Grand Orients founded the International Secretariat of the Masonic Adogmatic Powers (SIMPA), but by 2008, the Belgium Grand Orient had rejoined CLIPSAS.
Grand Masters
1833 - 1835 : Joseph-Marie de Frenne
1835 - 1842 : Goswin de Stassart
1842 - 1854 : Eugène Defacqz
1854 - 1862 : Théodore Verhaegen
1866 - 1868 : Joseph Van Schoor
1869 - 1871 : Pierre Van Humbeek
1871 - 1874 : Auguste Couvreur
1875 - 1877 : Henri Bergé
1877 - 1880 : Auguste Couvreur
1881 - 1883 : Henri Bergé
1896 - 1898 : Henri Bergé
1884 - 1886 : Eugène Goblet d'Alviella
1887 - 1889 : Victor Lynen
1890 - 1892 : Ernest Reisse
1893 - 1895 : Auguste Houzeau de Lehaie
1899 - 1901 : Gustave Royers
1902 - 1904 : Fernand Cocq
1905 - 1907 : Jean-Laurent Hasse
1908 - 1910 : Joseph Descamps
1911 - 1913 : Fernand Cocq
1914 - 1921 : Charles Magnette
1922 - 1924 : Fernand Levêque
1925 - 1927 : Charles Magnette
Notable members
Jules Anspach, 1829–1879.
Jules Bordet, 1870–1961, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1919)
François Bovesse, 1890–1944.
Léo Campion, 1905–1992.
Charles De Coster, 1827–1879.
Ovide Decroly, 1871–1932.
Eugène Goblet d'Alviella, 1846–1925.
Victor Horta, 1861–1947.
Paul Hymans, 1865–1941, first President of the League of Nations
Henri La Fontaine, 1854–1943, Nobel Peace Prize (1913)
Charles-Joseph de Ligne, 1735–1814.
Charles Magnette, 1863–1937.
Constantin Meunier, 1831–1905.
Edmond Picard, 1836–1924.
Jean Rey, 1902–1983, second President of the European Commission
Félicien Rops, 1833–1898.
Goswin de Stassart, 1780–1854, First Grand Master 1833–1841, styled himself only Grand Senior Warden and Acting Grandmaster in the hope that King Leopold I would accept a nominal title of Grandmaster. (He didn't.)
Emile Vandervelde, 1866–1938.
Théodore Verhaegen, 1796–1862, Grand Master 1854 - 1862, founder of the Université libre de Bruxelles
Relationship with the Roman Catholic Church
The GOB has often had a difficult relationship with the Roman Catholic Church (see Catholicism and Freemasonry). The Grand Orient was seen as the main source of anticlericalism during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.