Wednesday, May 13, 2009

GL of DC to Vote to Abrogate Charter of Ahiram Lodge #1000

Today, at the Semi-Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of DC, the Grand Lodge will vote on whether to abrogate the charter of Ahiram Lodge #1000. If you are unaware of the story, in short, the Grand Lodge of DC chartered a Lodge, Ahiram #1000, in the country of Lebanon. It was claimed by the Grand Lodge of New York that this was a violation of its Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction over its District Grand Lodge of Syria-Lebanon. This dispute ultimately led to the removal of recognition of GL of DC by the GL of NY. The dispute has gone on for over five months without resolve and has transformed from a mere territorial dispute into one that involves the protocols of establishing Lodges in foreign lands.

I will continue to monitor the situation for updates.

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Correction: GL of NY recognized GL of DC on February 18, however, the issue of Ahiram Lodge remained unresolved today.

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Update: GM Acquaah has sent an email to the Craft of the District asking the Brethren, at their Semi-Annual Communication, to pass a motion to retake the Charter of Ahiram Lodge #1000.
The quote is posted below:
(c) I will entertain a motion to abrogate the charter of Ahiram Lodge No.
1000 at the Semi-Annual Communication on Wednesday, May 13, 2009, and I
respectfully ask the voting members of the Grand Lodge to support this
motion.

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Update: The Grand Lodge of DC has revoked the Charter of Ahiram Lodge #1000, based in the country of Lebanon. The question is now, what happens to those brothers of Ahiram? I am not exactly certain but hopefully, this will be the end of this whole situation.

The situation concerning Lebanon is rather interesting in the Masonic world. There are very few places that do not have a Masonic Grand Lodge and of those places that do not, there usually is a Grand Lodge in Exile, such as Grand Lodge of Iran. What this shows is that as we continue to grow as a Fraternity globally, more toes will be stepped on during these growing pains. It will be interesting to see how these territorial disputes get resolved. At least we have one down.

5 comments:

MP said...

Whoa, since when?

I was aware that back around 23 February 2009, NY had declared amity with DC again.

What's going on now?

Millennial Freemason said...

Oops, I reported incorrectly. Thanks for catching that. It is correct that recognition was granted again by NY in February. However, it seems that there were still unresolved issues surrounding Ahiram Lodge. It seems that DC wants to put them to bed.

Nick

Still Justa Mason said...

I still don't understand how a District Grand Lodge can claim exclusive jurisdiction.

Justa

MP said...

A District GL does not, in historical times, claim an exclusive jurisdiction.

Neither, in fact, did the three Home Grand Lodges.

New York, it seems, is continuing to attempt to assert some sort of primacy in the Masonic world of the USA, ignoring the idea of inter pares.

It feels like, in light of PGM Elias' statement "First, the Grand Lodge of New York’s claim of exclusive jurisdiction in this free and
sovereign nation outside of North America is invalid. There exists no Grand Lodge of
Lebanon and the current operation there of regular lodges not beholden to the Grand
Lodge of New York nullifies any claim of exclusive jurisdiction in that country.
" and sitting GM Acquaah's request that the Brethren vote for revocation, we are seeing a continuation of disagreements in the GL leadership.

These are the sort of things we have seen in the past, considering that DC supposedly had a progressive GL line - yet the SGW from 2005 did not step up as Deputy GM in 2006, nor as GM in 2007.

This internal strife is something I expect from West Virginia, not in DC.

I'm an outsider to DC, now, though in the past I have sat in Lodge, MANY times, with both Akram and Kwame.

I wish I could now, and ask them both - "what the hell is going on?"

Anonymous said...

This is a matter of egotism in North America...and megalomania in the Middle East. In both cases the brothers concerned have fantastically elevated views of themselves. In this case though the blame can primarily be put on the immediate past GM of DC, who apparently wanted one last hurrah before his year ended -- and boy did he get it !