Grande Oriente Lusitano

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The Grande Oriente Lusitano - Maçonaria Portuguesa (Grand Orient of Lusitania - Portuguese Freemasonry) is a symbolic Masonic Obedience founded in 1802, thus being the oldest Portuguese Masonic Obedience. Its first Grand Master was Sebastião José de São Paio de Melo e Castro Lusignan, grandson of the first Marquis of Pombal, and his symbolic name was Egas Moniz.

The Grande Oriente Lusitano - Maçonaria Portuguesa belongs to the Masonic liberal current, proclaiming the absolute liberty of conscience and adogmatism.

Its history in intimately related to the history of Portugal itself since the early 19th century. Some of the great changes Portugal has met during the 19th and 20th centuries were mostly due to the action of Portuguese Freemasonry, such as:

The Liberal Revolution of 1820;
The abolition of the Death Penalty, in 1867;
The establishment of the Portuguese Republic, in 1910.

Opposing every form of oppression, the Grande Oriente Lusitano has faced throughout its history many moments of fierce persecution by the most conservative and reactionary wings of society. Amongst these moments, the prohibition during the Estado Novo dictatorship (law nº1901 dated 13th of May 1935, proposed by José Cabral who had recently joined the single state-ruled party União Nacional, National Union, after leaving the Portuguese integralists and the national-sindicalists leadered by Francisco Rolão Preto) which forced portuguese freemasons into clandestinity and often prison and political exile. [Fernando Pessoa], the renowned portuguese poet, who assumed himseld as a profane (or non-mason) published an article in Diário de Lisboa (Lisbon Daily, a daily newspaper) defending Freemasonry and specifically the Grande Oriente Lusitano. During clandestinity (1935-1974), the Grande Oriente Lusitano had its buildings confiscated and the Masonic Palace, in center Lisbon, occupied by the Legião Portuguesa (Portuguese Legion, a para-military political force created for the "defense of the State").

The Revolution of the Carnations on the 25th of April of 1974 revoked law nº1901 and the Grande Oriente Lusitano could once more see the light of day and have its buildings returned.

Amongst its members one may find very important names of the History of Portugal and the World:

Gomes Freire de Andrade (Grand-Master of the Grande Oriente Lusitano at the time of his death in 1817);
Manuel Fernandes Tomás (founder of Sinédrio, a secret society created to organize the Liberal Revolution of 1820);
Manuel da Silva Passos (better known as Passos Manuel, prominent liberal politician);
Sebastião de Magalhães Lima (founder of the Portuguese League of the Rights of Man);
Bernardino Luís Machado Guimarães (president of the Republic);
José Relvas (proclaimed the Republic from on the 5th of October of 1910 from the balcony of Lisbon's Municipality);
José Mendes Ribeiro Norton de Matos (Grand-Master of the Grande Oriente Lusitano, general and candidate for the democratic opposition on the presidential elections of 1948);
Afonso Costa (republican politician, several times prime-minister);
António Egas Moniz (doctor in medicine, Nobel Prize);
Gago Coutinho (aviator);
Emídio Guerreiro (mathematician, politician, antifascist resistant, fought in the Spanish Civil War for the republicans, member of the French resistance in WWII, founder of the Portuguese Popular Democratic Party, PPD);
Fernando Valle (doctor in medicine and politician, founder of the Portuguese Socialist Party);
José Martí (martyr of Cuban independence, initiated in 1871 at Armonía nº52 lodge at the Orient of Madrid, of the Grande Oriente Lusitano);
and many more.

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 and 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 head quarters 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.