THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY IN BRAZIL

In 1820, the only representing Order in the then kingdom of Brazil, was the Lodge Commércio e Artes in Rio de Janeiro, known to have been established under French authorization in 06.24.1815. In 1822, this Lodge was divided into three branches, that is to say, divided in three parts: Lodges Commércio e Artes, Esperança de Nichteroy and União e Tranquilidade; these ones formed, through their delegates, the first Grand Orient of Brazil, having as their first Grand Master José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva (1763-1838). The Modern French Rite was adopted, with the seven degrees, receiving recognition from the Grand Orient of France. In the same year, Dom Pedro Regent, - IV of Portugal (1789-1834), 23 years old, and later Emperor of Brazil, was initiated in one of these three Lodges: Commércio e Artes. He was immediately proclaimed Grand Master. In consequence of internal disputes, motivated by laic political involvement, José Bonifácio left the lodge and with Martim Francisco and other Masons, comes to establish a secret paramasonic society named "The Apostolate", with signs and statutes from the Grand Orient. The Emperor was installed in this new Order as Grand Master or Archon-King. Convinced that the Masonic associations were in fact mere political meetings, the emperor ordered by decree the dissolution of the meetings in October 1822. Within the Apostolate, the participants were called "The Columns of the Throne " - because the dogmatic goal was to support the constitutional monarchy. Nevertheless, for the same reasons that led him to void the Grand Orient, he dissolved the Apostolate in 07.15.1823.

All Masonic Lodges remained under permanent coercion until Emperor Dom Pedro’s departure to Europe, in 1831. After the abdication of that monarch, a "Brazilian Grand Orient" had been established, what led to the rebirth of the ancient (or original) "Grand Orient of Brazil", which had as its first Grand Master José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, also working in the French Modern Rite.

In 1832, Francisco Gomes Brandão(1794-1870) from Bahia, alias, Francisco Gê Acayaba de Montezuma (titled Viscount of Jequitinhonha in 1854),who had served as ambassador in several European courts, returned to Brazil, where he was invested by the Supreme Council of Belgium to establish a branch of A.A.S.R.. In consequence, in November 1832, he proceeded the institution of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, in Brazil. The two Grand Orient immediately started to authorize Chapters and Consistories and finished by founding a Supreme Council each one of them. In 1835, there were dissensions among the participants of the Supreme Council number 1. Some of those elected Andrada e Silva as their Sovereign Grand Commander; another section elected its own Supreme Council number 2, while the remaining one kept steady in its fidelity to its founder Montezuma. In this period of time, there were then two Grand Orients in full activity, and four Supreme Councils. In the same year (1853), the first of a series of Lodges in the Empire, was constituted by the Grand Lodge of England: number 6l6; 703 in 1841 in Rio de Janeiro (in darkness since 03.05.1862); 970, later 672, in 1856 (Grand Orient would confirm its use of sharing its territory, when signing the Treaty (May 06, 1935) with the United Grand Lodge of England, which authorized that Power to install Lodges in the Brazilian territory). In 1842 the Brazilian Grand Orient (G.O.n.2) openly rejects the French Modern Rite, and transfers its fidelity to the A.A.S.R. 33rd Degree, establishing union with the Supreme Council n.2. Three distinct organizations were, therefore, left apart: the two Grand Orients, each one of them holding a Supreme Council and the Original Supreme Council (n.1) under Montezuma.

On September 30th 1860, the Grand Orient n.2 and the Supreme Council n.1 were dissolved and suppressed by Imperial Decree.

The remaining Grand Orient of Brazil divided into two parts in 1863, each one of them becoming known by the name of the street where they had been established. One of the Bodies, the Grand Orient of Lavradio, elected as Grand Master Bento da Silva Lisboa (1793 - 1864), Baron of Cayrú, who was followed in 1865 by Dr. Joaquim Marcellino de Brito (1799 - 1870) Minister of the Supreme Court of Justice for the Empire, and by José Maria da Silva Paranhos (1819 - 1880), Viscount of Rio Branco, in 1870. As for the other part, the Grand Orient of the Beneditinos, they elected Dr. Joaquim de Saldanha Marinho (1816 - 1895) as their Grand Master.

In 1872, the two Grand Orients united, and one year later both searched one more time the recognition as the legitimate Grand Orient of Brazil.

In 1877, the Beneditinos, under Saldanha Marinho, assembled 216 Lodges and the Lavradios, under Rio Branco, were keeping 56 Lodges.

In January 18, 1883, the union was improved, and Francisco José Cardoso Jr. (1826 -?), Commander of the Order of the Rose, was proclaimed Grand Master (one and only) of the Grand Orient of Brazil and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council. Three rites are recognized by the Body - the A.A.S.R. 33rd Degree, the French Modern 7 Degree, and the Adonhiramite Rite, each of them governed by the Chamber of the Grand Orient, that is entitled as Grand Lodge.

Facing the constitutional characteristics of the Grand Orient of Brazil, and according to the interbody recognition clauses, several Lodges of foreign Jurisdictions came to be established in the Brazilian territory, represented by the Grand Bodies of England, Scotland, Hamburg, and Ireland, up to the end of the XIX century.

Considerable social and political changements by the end of the century, the change in the form of government in Brazil in 1889, come to deeply alterate Masonry activities. There is a previously occurred event within the Grand Orient of France, that would strongly reflect in the Grand Orient of Brazil.

A wave of divisionism went through the French Grand Orient in 1884 that accelerates and reinforces with the outcome of anarchists and communists theories. By this time, freemasons were mostly political-doctrinaire republicans, either from the right or from the left; they will stamp their way through Masonic Order, firmly orienting it towards politics and denying the ancient conception of Masonry.

In 1877, under Pastor Fréderic Desmons’ proposition that Obedience will withdraw from their headings and from their rituals the secular form: "To the Glory of the Great Architect of the Universe". We must though observe, in order to keep impartial that this form hadn’t always be part of the Masonic sacraments on the first half of the XVIII century, though being it inferred, once an atheist candidate could not be accepted.

The work of certain revolutionary’s elements within the Lodges, from 1860 to 1880, was fundamental for the change in behaviors.

The Grand Orient of France and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite were strong and systematically influenced by the militants of Proudhon’s socialism and positivism, spreading within the Lodges a political and philosophical stream, that for its very nature being sectarian, materialistic, hostile to every candidacy in its traditional form, demonstrated that their authors were totally strange to the authentic Masonic Tradition.

A certain fact remains proved. The more a Masonic Obedience is placed away from a traditional stream, at the same time non-political and ritualistic, the more it is subjected to the several schisms, born from ideological inner controversies. (F\ Robert Ambelain - La Franc-Maçonerie Oubliée - Ed. Robert Laffont - Paris - l.985)

In Brazil, by that time, the political and philosophical infiltrations in the Obedience were brought about in a similar way.

In 1870, Brazil saw the birth of some belligerent traditions until then unknown - this was a country of dispersing patriotism, where the throne had become the union converging center - what brought about a military class that was lacking. This class had now emerged as a social factor of everyday life, holding caste pretensions, influencing the political life. The following happenings caused to arrive the typical Latin American institution: the administrative militarism. Other negative factors coincided with the disobedience of the military classes, such as the increase given to the republican ideal by the organization of a party and propaganda, up to the figuring of cultural persecution provoked by the intransigence of some Catholic Bishops in what Masonry was concerned. The regime fell apart and the republic was born from a military pronouncement disguised in a philosophical conquest of the positivism, that pushed by Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães and his disciples from the Escola Militar, lent it a feature of political evolution. The smashing majority of the individuals involved in the advent of the Brazilian republic were Masons, and Masonry was conducted by positivism, since 1876, when the first Positivist Society had been founded in Brazil by the following Masons: Teixeira Mendes, Miguel Lemos and Benjamin Constant. Its final goal was "to form believers and to modify the opinion by means of opportune interventions in the public affairs". Among these interventions, we could quote the participation of the positivists Masons in the Brazilian Constitution of 1891, and in the creation of the country flag, that exhibits from then on, the positivist device "Ordem e Progresso".

The Grand Orient do Brazil entered the XX century, within this political environment, not exercising a Masonry of Tradition, but in a kind of masonism under all aspects that could be analyzed.

It is before this disturbing atmosphere that in the 20’s the Grand Orient of Brazil invaded its prerogatives and attributions from the Supreme Council’s sovereignty, in the attempt of subordinate it to its own political and administrative jurisdiction. The Supreme Council reacted, denouncing the then Constitution of the Grand Orient of Brazil, modeled upon the Constitution of the Grand Orient of France, inspired in the French Rite, that remained irregular since 1877, before all the Regular Masonic Powers. The convention of the Supreme Councils held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1922 had decided that the Supreme Councils should administer their own administrations when concords and appendants to the Grand Bodies. In 1926, the Supreme Council 33rd Degree, having as Illustrious Sovereign Grand Commander, Brother Mário Behring (1876 - 1933), celebrated a treaty before the Grand Orient of Brazil, under Fonseca Hermes as Grand Master, establishing the separation of the three first degrees known as symbolic, from the philosophical degrees, remaining the Grand Orient of Brazil with the right to found only Symbolic Lodges in the first three degrees and the Supreme Council renouncing that right, and conserving the jurisdiction over the high degrees of the A.A.S.R.. Nevertheless, the successor of Fonseca Hermes, Octávio Kelly, did not agree with the treaty, considering it unconstitutional, and revoking it.

In June, 20, 1927, during a Supreme Council meeting, the Treaty and the Pact of Union and Confederation with the Grand Orient of Brazil was denounced, the incentive for the rising of Grand Symbolic and Independent Lodges in all the States of the Federation, establishing as well the prerogative of founding in each state where a Grand Lodge existed, a Superior Philosophical Body, giving sovereignty to the new Symbolic Bodies, these ones being able and from now on to work in the Scottish, Schroeder and York Rites. On August 3rd, 1927, the Supreme Council of 33rd Degree of the A.A.S.R declared the Grand Orient of Brazil irregular. This time the Masonry of Brazil was divided in 2 distinct Bodies: a Grand Orient with a Supreme Council names "of Brazil" (incorporated to the Grand Orient), and the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree of A.A.S.R. for the United States of Brazil, with Symbolic Lodges under its jurisdiction. It becomes established from this year on, the advent of the Masonic Bodies named as Grand Lodges, originated from the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, that would spread over all the states in Brazil, starting by the Grand Lodges of Amazonas, Pará, Bahia, Paraíba, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, and São Paulo. These ones would also grant Constitutive charts to the Grand Lodges that would be formed. During the convention of the Supreme Councils held in Paris in 1929, the Supreme Council under Mário Behring was recognized as unique and legitimated for Brazil.

In 1935, the United Grand Lodge of England founded a District Grand Lodge of South America, Northern District, with eleven constituent Lodges. The Grand Orient of Brazil originally warranted ten of these Lodges, the earliest in 1891. The English Grand Lodge was the first to recognize the Grand Orient and in 1935 these two Grand Bodies signed a Treaty of Fraternal Alliance, whereby England recognized the Grand Orient as the sole Masonic Power in Brazil. In return, England was given the right to maintain English Lodges in the country. In practice, this treaty meant that the ten English-speaking Lodges under the Grand Orient could transfer their allegiance to London, which they did. Indeed, this is the only occasion that a group of Lodges have transferred to the United Grand Lodge of England from another Grand body in this manner.

From the constitutional reform of May, 23rd,1953 on, the G.O. B. separated the philosophical degrees from the first three Degrees called Symbolic ones; in the same way, the Grand Lodges have reformed their constitutions, separating the Symbolic Degrees from the philosophical Degrees, ratifying the separation in 1988. Ever since, the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Republic of Brazil, becomes a Masonic Body appendant and concordant to the Grand Lodges, as well as the Liturgical Inspectorate, Consistories and Chapters in each one of the Brazilian Grand Jurisdictions.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GRANDE LOJA DO PARANÁ

It would certainly be optimistic to describe the Jurisdiction of state of Paraná, within the period we are attempting to report, such as being in a state of balance between the Grand Orient of Brazil and the other schismatic Bodies in the same area. The wish for union or else sovereignty over the territory has always symbolized a wider aspiration - the one a pacific diplomacy could never satisfy, once it will quickly become an obvious turning into terre-à-partager. In consequence, it is not surprisingly that around 1940, some Masons from Paraná sought a diplomatic way to stimulate the growth in the sphere of interest over a legitimated Masonic Body, void to assume the territory, providing regularity to their aspirations. This Masonic Body became the Grand Lodge of Rio de Janeiro.

In fact, it was natural that Hugo Simas bent towards that Power, encouraging his pairs to take a position in that sense. From the time the Delegate was Bro\ Fulton, the happenings developed very quickly.

On January 2nd, 1941, from the Orient of Curitiba, the Master Mason Newton Guimarães and other seven persons sent letter to the Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Rio de Janeiro, represented by their Delegate, asking for a Chart of Constitution for the foundation of a Masonic Lodge in Curitiba, named REGENERAÇÃO; João Nunes Ferreira, with eight other masons and Alfredo Badaró Braga, with nine more masons, sent a letter with the same purpose and to the same addressee, about the Lodges EMANCIPAÇÃO and LIBERTAÇÃO, respectively.

The Commission of Legislation withdraws favorable opinion, and considers that all the three Lodges are Regular, Just and Perfect and therefore they approve their formal realization.

So, the message from the Most Worshipful Grand Master as the Commission opinion, were read and approved during the Extraordinary Session of the Grand Lodge of Rio de Janeiro and are within the Record of Proceedings n. 117 on January 22nd, 1941. During this session, held by sixteen persons and presided by the Most Worshipful Grand Master Brother Álvaro Figueiredo, the reporter was Brother Joaquim Moreira Sampaio, who reported the history of démarches in the foundation process of the Lodges of Paraná and the following organization of the Grand Lodge. This last topic was approved, such as the other topics by unanimity.

On Monday January 27th, 1941, Attorney General Hugo Simas sent a letter to the Grand Lodge of Rio de Janeiro, communicating the Foundation of the Grand Lodge of Paraná, set forth in January 25th, 1941, composed by the Lodges Emancipação n. 27, Libertação n. 28, and Regeneração n. 26, together with the composition of the Grand Officers Staff of the Grand Lodge, and asking expedition of the Chart of Constitution.

During the extraordinary session registered in the Record of Proceedings n. 118, held on a Friday April 18th, 1941, in the Grand Lodge of Rio de Janeiro, under the Presidency of the Most Worshipful Grand Master Brother Álvaro Figueiredo, they read the Decrees n. 76, 77 and 78, giving authorization to the Lodges of Curitiba to constitute the Grand Lodge of Paraná and the Act n. 238 nominating Brother Fulton Lee Swain, Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Rio de Janeiro before the Grand Lodge of Paraná. The Ambassadors would deliver the Chart of Constitution.

Taking over her sovereignty on the new territorial jurisdiction, the Grand Lodge of Paraná withdraws the first three Charts of Constitution of the new Symbolic Lodges: Regeneração n. 1, Emancipação n. 2, and Libertação n. 3.

It was definitely constituted the Grand Lodge of Paraná.

From 1941 throughout 1945, the three Lodges remained in activity, however a non-witnessed activity. Prudence imposed a light veil of discretion over the Temples, once the Grand Master himself disappears. The Most Worshipful Grand Master Hugo Simas leaves Curitiba in 1941, and travels to Rio de Janeiro, where he shall have a health treatment. After serious illness, he was deceased in October the 27th of the same year. When the period of the international conflicts is over, from 1945 on, Brother Américo Meinick becomes a provisional Grand Master, when the Symbolic Lodge "Sol do Oriente No.4" is founded, in August 7th, 1945.

From then on, we have had nineteen Grand Masters up to date. We nowadays have approximately three thousand members and 105 Lodges.

Grand Secretary for Foreign Relations
Grande Loja do Paraná

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