Grand Orient de France

Grand Orient de France

Coat of arms of the Grand Orient de France
Constituted	24 June 1773
Jurisdiction	France
Location	Paris France
Website	godf.org

The Grand Orient de France (GODF) is the largest of several Masonic organizations in France and the oldest in Continental Europe. It was formed out of the older Grand Lodge of France in 1773, and briefly absorbed the rump of the older body in 1799, allowing it to date its foundation to 1728 or 1733. It is generally considered to be the mother lodge of traditional Liberal, or Continental Freemasonry.

In 1777, the Grand Orient de France recognised the antiquity of the Lodge of Perfect Equality, said to have been formed in 1688. This, if it actually existed at that time, was a military lodge attached to the Royal Irish Regiment, formed by Charles II of England in Saint-Germain in 1661, just before his return to England. The regiment remained loyal to the Stuarts, and did not return to France until after the fall of Limerick in 1689. They returned to barracks in Saint-Germain in 1698, surviving to become the 92nd Infantry Regiment after the revolution. With these dates in mind, modern scholars usually regard the 1688 lodge as a folk tale.

An English Lodge is also said to have been founded at Dunkirk in 1721. Another "first Lodge" was organised by exiled Jacobites under the Earl of Derwentwater in Paris about 1725. A lodge was documented at the Louis d'Argent in the Rue des Boucheries, Paris, in 1732. These were English-speaking lodges that happened to be in France. There was also a French lodge listed in the 1723 minutes of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. Meeting at Solomon's Temple, in Hemmings Row (then off St. Martin's Lane in London) the Master was Jean Theophile Desaguliers, then Deputy Grand Master and effective governor of the craft in England. In a list of members, mostly having French names, James Anderson, who compiled the first printed constitutions, is listed as "Jaques Anderson maitre et arts".

The first "deputisations" of lodges in France by the London Grand Lodge occurred in 1732, and the Grand Orient now dates its foundation from 1733, when there started to be a recognisable Grand Lodge of France. It was in 1743 that the English Grand Lodge of France became a French phenomenon, with the Count of Clermont becoming Grand Master until his death in 1771. Shortly after his death, a schism occurred, with the larger party becoming the Grand Orient de France in 1773. The ritual of the new Grand Lodge followed that of the Premier Grand Lodge of England.