SWITZERLAND
Encyclopedia Masonica
In 1737 Lord Darnley, Grand Master of England, granted a Deputation for Geneva, in Switzerland, to George Hamilton, who, in the same year, established a Provincial Grand Lodge at Geneva. Warrants were granted by this Body to several Lodges in and around the City of Geneva. Two years afterward, a Lodge, composed principally of Englishmen, was established at Lausanne, under the name of L' Union Parfaite des Etrangers. Findel, on the authority of Mossdorf's edition of Lenning, says that the Warrant for this Lodge was granted by the Duke of Montagu; a statement also made by Thory. This is an error. The Duke of Montagu was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England in 1721, and could not, therefore, have granted a Warrant in 1739. The Warrant must have been issued by the Marquis of Carnarvon, who was Grand Master from April, 1738 to May, 1739.
In an old list of the Regular Lodges on the Registry of England, this Lodge is thus described: "Private Room, Lausanne, in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, February 2, 1739." Soon after, this Lodge assumed a superintending authority with the title of Helvetic Roman Directory, and instituted many other Lodges in the Pays de Vaud.
But in Switzerland, as elsewhere, Freemasonry was at an early period exposed to persecution. In 1738, almost immediately after their institution, the Lodges at Geneva were suppressed by the magistrates. In 1740, so many calumnies had been circulated in the Swiss Cantons against the Order, that the Freemasons published an Apology for the Order in Der Brachmann, a Zurich journal. It had, however, but little effect, for in 1743 the magistrates of Bern ordered the closing of all the Lodges. This Edict was not obeyed; and therefore, on March 3, 1745, another, still more severe, was issued, by which a penalty of one hundred thalers, and forfeiture of his situation was to be inflicted on every officer of the government who should continue his connection with the Freemasons.
To this the Freemasons replied in a pamphlet entitled Le Franc-Maçon dans la République, published simultaneously, in 1746, at Frankfort and Leipsic. In this work they ably defended themselves from all the unjust charges that had been made against them. Notwithstanding that the result of this defense was that the magistrates pushed their opposition no farther, the Lodges in the Pays de Vaud remained suspended for nineteen years. But in 1764 the primitive Lodge at Lausanne was revived, and the revival was gradually followed by the other Lodges. This resumption of labor was, however, but of brief duration. In 1770 the magistrates again interdicted the meetings. During all this period the Freemasons of Geneva, under a more liberal government, were uninterrupted in their labors, and extended their operations into German Switzerland.
June 1, 1769, nine Lodges assembled and formed on June 24 the Independent Grand Lodge of Geneva. Soon afterwards, however, the Craft came into disfavor in the country. In 1771 Lodges had been erected in Vevay and Zurich, which, working at first according to the French system, soon afterward adopted the German ritual. In 1775 the Lodges of the Pays de Vaud were permitted to resume their labors. Formerly, they had worked according to the system of the Grand Lodge of England, whence they had originally derived their Freemasonry; but this they now abandoned, and adopted the Rite of Strict Observance. In the same year the advanced Degrees of France were introduced into the Lodge at Basle. Both it and the Lodge at Lausanne now assumed higher rank, and took the title of Scottish Directories.
A Congress was held at Basle in 1777, in which there were representatives from the Strict Observance Lodges of the Pays de Vaud and the English Lodge of Zurich. It was then determined that the Freemasonry of Switzerland should be divided under two distinct authorities: the one to be called the German Helvetic Directory, with its seat at Zurich; and the other to be called the Scottish Helvetic Roman Directory, whose seat was at Lausanne.
This word Roman, or more properly Romunsh, is the name of one of the four languages spoken in Switzerland. It is a corruption of the Latin, and supposed to have been the colloquial dialect of a large part of the Grisons. Still there were great dissensions in the Freemasonry of Switzerland. A clandestine Lodge had been established in 1777, at Lausanne, by one Sidrae, whose influence it was found difficult to cheek. The Helvetic Roman Directory found it necessaryw for this purpose, to enter, in 1779, into a Treaty of Alliance with the Grand Lodge at Geneva, and the Lodge of Sidrae was then at length dissolved and its members dispersed.
The Helvetic Roman Directory published its Constitutions in 1778. The Rite it practised was purely philosophical every Hermetic element having been eliminated The appointment of the Masters of Lodges, who held office for three years, was vested in the Directory, and, in consequences men of ability and learning were chosen, and the Craft were skilfully governed. November, 1782, the Council of Bern interdicted the meetings of the Lodges and the exercise of Freemasonry.
The Helvetic Roman Directorys to give an example of obedience to law, however unjust and oppressive, dissolved its Lodges and discontinued its own meetings. But it provided far a maintenance of its foreign relations, by the appointment of a committee invested with the power of conducting its correspondence and of controlling the foreign Lodges under its obedience. There was a conference of the Swiss Lodges at Zurich in 1785 to take into consideration certain propositions which had been made by the Congress of Paris, held by the Philalethes; but the desire that a similar Congress should be convened at Lausanne met with no favor from the Directorial Committee. The Grand Orient of France began to exert an influence, and many Lodges of Switzerland, among others ten in Geneva, gave their adhesion to that Body. The seven other Genevan Lodges which were faithful to the English system organized a Grand Orient of Geneva, and in l789 formed an alliance with the Grand Lodge of England. About the same time, the Lodges of the Pays de Vaud, which had been suppressed in 1782 by the government of Bern, resumed their vitality.
But the political disturbances consequent on the French Revolution began to exercise their influences in the Cantons. In 1792, the Helvetic Roman Directory suspended work; and its example was followed in 1793 by the Scottish Directory. From 1793 to 1803, Freemasonry was almost dead in Switzerland, although a few Lodges in Geneva and a German one in Nuremberg continued a sickly existence.
The Grand Orient of France chartered on September 14, 1802, Hope, or L'Espérance, Lodge at Bern, which, in 1818, became an English Provincial Grand Lodge and on June 24, 1822, formed with several others the National Grand Lodge of Switzerland. In 1813 Hope Lodge had initiated Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg Gotha, afterwards the first King of the Belgians. With the cession of the Republic of Geneva to Franee, the Grand Lodge ceased to exist, and all the Lodges were united with the Grand Orient of France. Several Lodges, however, in the Pays de Vaud, whose Constitution had been irregular, united together to form an independent Body under the title of the Grand National Helvetic Orient. Peter Maurice Glaire introduced his modified Scottish Rite of seven Degrees and was at the age of eighty-seven elected its Grand Master for life.
Glaire was possessed of great abilities, and had been the friend of Stanislaus, King of Poland, in whose interests he had performed several important missions to Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France. He was much attached to Freemasonry, and while in Poland had elaborated on the Scottish system the Rite which he subsequently bestowed Upon the Helvetic Orient. In 1820 there were nineteen Lodges, which worked under four different Obediences, the Scottish Directory, the Grand Helvetic Roman Orient, the English Provincial Grand Lodge, and the Grand Orient of France. besides, there were two Lodges of the Rite of Mizraim, which had been introduced by the Brothers Bedarride.
The Freemasons of Switzerland, weary of these divisions, had been long anxious to build a firm foundation of Masonic unity, and to obliterate forever this state of isolation, where Lodges were proximate in locality but widely asunder in their Masonic relations.
Many attempts were made, but the rivalries of petty authorities and the intolerance of opinion caused them always to be failures. At length a movement, which was finally crowned with success, was inaugurated by the Lodge Modestia sum Libertate, Moderation with Freedom, of Zurich. Being about to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its existence in 1836, it invited the Swiss dodges of all Rites to be present at the festival.
There a proposition for a National Masonic Union was made, which met with a favorable response from all who were present. The reunion at this festival had given so much satisfaction that similar meetings were held in 1835 at Bern, in 1840 at Basle, and in 1842 at Locle. The preliminary means for establishing a Confederacy were discussed at these various biennial conventions, and progress slowly but steadily was made toward the accomplishment of that object. In 1842 the task of preparing a draft of a Constitution for a United Grand Lodge was entrusted to Brother Gysi-Schinz, of Zurich, who so successfully completed it that it gave almost universal satisfaction.
The Grand Lodge Alpina of Switzerland was created in July, 1844, from a fusion of the National Grand Lodge with the Grand Directory of Lodges working the Scottish Rectified Rite, the latter following a Templar Ritual, and dating its activities from 1779. This as a Grand Priory became later in aetive friendly association with the Supreme Council. Brother J. J. Hottinger was the first Grand Master.
Here we may observe that in some countries there has been a tendency to a greater freedom with these time-honored words indicating the Deity, even to substitute something else not so rigid in its definite meaning. As for example, at the seventy-fifth Assembly of the Grand Lodge Alpina, held at Zurich, Switzerland, on Saturday, May 21, 1927, under the presidency of the Grand Master, Dr. Fritz Brandenberg, a motion was made to substitute the word "Divinity" for "God" in the first article of the Constitution, which reads: "The Freemason reveres God under the name of T. G. A. D. T. U." 'the motion was lost by a majority of 69 votes, 23 voting in favour and 92 against (see Freemason, London, June 11, 1927).
