Freemasonry in Portugal

The first known Freemasons in Portugal were the Swiss John Coustos and two other Portuguese members of his lodge, who were arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition and questioned under torture in the 1740s. Coustos wrote a book detailing his sufferings under the Inquisition. Today there are several Masonic Obediences in Portugal.

The "Grand Orient of Lusitania", founded in 1802, is the oldest Masonic Obedience in Portugal. It is recognized by the Grand Orient de France and also belongs to CLIPSAS. The Grand Orient of Portugal belongs to the Masonic liberal current, proclaiming the absolute liberty of conscience and dogmatism.

Under the auspices of the Grande Oriente Lusitano there are lodges of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and of the French Rite. These Rites are administered by the respective philosophical Potences with which the Grande Oriente Lusitano has a treaty to confer the symbolic degrees:

The three potencies are represented in civil society through the Grémio Lusitano, a cultural, recreational and philanthropic society whose headquarters are situated at the Rua do Grémio Lusitano, number 25, in Lisbon. This building, the Masonic Palace, also hosts the Portuguese Masonic Museum, considered by many as one of the best of its kind in Europe. The Museum is open to the general public.

The "Regular Grand Lodge of Portugal" (GLRP) was created under a warrant from the Grande Loge Nationale Française in 1991, but recognition by that body has recently been withdrawn.

The "Legal Grand Lodge of Portugal/GLRP" (GLLP/GLRP) was created in 1996, after a dispute over the legality of an election to the Grand Mastership of GLRP in which the party disputing the GM managed to take control of the civil association under which the Obedience had legal existence. That led the majority of the members of that body to create a new civil association under the name "Legal Grand Lodge of Portugal/GLRP". The members of GLRP see GLLP as a new Masonic Obedience; however, the members of GLLP see themselves as the same Obedience as before, but under a new name, and consider GLRP to be, now, a clandestine organization. The dispute was taken to several Grand Masters meetings, who considered GLLP to be the same Masonic Obedience formerly known as GLRP, and repudiated the acts of those who held the name GLRP. As such, most international masonic bodies no longer recognize GLRP. GLLP, however, is recognized by most Grand Lodges in the Anglo-American stream of Freemasonry as the only Regular masonic obedience in Portugal.

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