HISTORY OF THE GREAT ROMANIAN NATIONAL LODGE 1880

Romanian Freemasonry dates from 1732 (17 years after the Grand Lodge of London, in 1717), new documents advance by two years the date of the creation of the first Lodge and the initiation of Prince Mavrocordat, who was long mentioned as being in 1734 in Moldavia. This year, Prince Constantin Mavrocordat, one of the most enlightened Romanian rulers of the eighteenth century (at that time, present-day Romania was divided into 3 principalities: Transylvania, under the Habsburg Empire, Moldova and Wallachia - vassals of the Ottoman Empire) was initiated as a Freemason by the preceptor of his sons, the Italian Antonio del Chiaro. Constantin Mavrocordat ruled four times in Moldova and in Wallachia, completely reformed the administration and finances of the principalities in which he ruled, unified the boyar ranks in two classes: the Great Boyars and the Small Boyars and for the first time wrote a constitution that will be evoked in 1740 by a newspaper in Paris, as a rarity in this region of the world. The Masonic lodges will develop in this period of the 18th century on a large scale in all the 3 Romanian principalities. We will have especially Lodges in the Danube cities, often made up of foreign traders, numerous in this era of flourishing trade relations and which the Romanian Principalities were already known exporters of cereals. The lodges will shape the spirit of the Romanian elite and will allow the extraordinary development of ideas of progress. Precisely because he was a Freemason in a lodge in Vienna, the hero Horia could be received by Emperor Joseph II. Later the hero Tudor Vladimirescu, Freemason will also lead the liberation struggle against the Ottoman Empire. The same generous ideas circulated by Freemasonry, will permeate the generations of young Pasoptist boyars, provoking the chain of revolutions that in 1848 shook the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Sublime Gate empires. The Freemasons will be the ones who in 1859 will succeed in the Union of the two Principalities, putting in their head the Prince, Colonel Alexandru Ioan Cuza, himself a Freemason. The liberal government led by another Freemason, Mihail Kogalniceanu, will implement the first major reforms that will modernize what was still Little Romania and especially the first Agrarian Reform of 1864, which will give the peasants the land they worked and aspired to for so long. . During this period, all the Masonic Lodges constituted on the Romanian territory, however, depended on a foreign obedience: French, German, Italian, etc. In 1880, Captain Constantin M. Moroiu, will manage to join 6 Romanian Lodges and having as Nas, the Great Lusitanian Orient (Portuguese) will light the lights of the first Romanian National and Independent Obedience. Constantin Moroiu, who became a Colonel, will be one of the most brilliant figures of the Leader of the Romanian Freemasonry, at the end of the 19th century. He will be the first Great Hierophant, introducing the Rite of Memphis and Misraim in Romania, in 1882, and the first patent from the Great Garibaldi. Notable historical personalities such as Constantin Moroiu , Mihail Kogălniceanu , Titu Maiorescu , Alexandru Vaida-Voievod , Prince George Valentin Bibescu , Ioan Pangal , Mihail Sadoveanu , Alexandru Paleologu and honorary members such as King Edward VII of England, Frederic Wilhelm II of Prussia , King Oscar II of Sweden , King Frederic Wilhelm I of Prussia , Albert Pike and others brought historical references to the Grand Romanian National Lodge. Until the First World War, there were 27 Symbolic Lodges under the Grand Masonic Jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge. After 1929, the Transylvanian Lodges of Rite Ioanit, were integrated in the Great Romanian National Lodge. In 1930, the Grand National Lodge of England (UGLE) recognized the Romanian Grand National Lodge and established a treaty of friendship with it. In 1933, the two main Obedients, the Grand Romanian National Lodge and the Grand Orient of Romania, were united under the leadership of Grand Master Mihail Sadoveanu. Unfortunately, this unity will not last long, and the Romanian Freemasonry will split again, as a sad example of the divisions that tear the Romanian Society apart. In 1937, under the pressure of the Fascist regime of Charles II, the Romanian Freemasonry suspended itself, falling asleep. The leaders of the Grand Romanian National Lodge and of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, make a statement to this effect before Patriarch Miron Cristea. Regarding this period, various untruths were later circulated, among which the fact that the Romanian Orthodox Church, through Patriarch Miron (Cristea), himself a Freemason, would have condemned Freemasonry. The so-called "damn" conviction was never published. The next Patriarch Nicodim (Munteanu) 1939-1948, is considered himself an initiated Freemason, in a Lodge of the Grand Romanian National Lodge, in the years when he was bishop. In 1944, after the communists came to power, the lodges were opened, but immediately penetrated by the communist spies and forced to give a report after each outfit to the communist security body. Until 1948, the activity of the lodges became more and more difficult, being controlled and supervised by the communist regime. In 1948, Freemasonry is officially banned in Romania. The Romanian Masons will choose 3 paths: the Way of Exile and thus numerous lodges will be established in France, Germany, Israel, Argentina etc… The Way of Faith in the Masonic Ideal and will be imprisoned, exiled and killed in communist prisons Calea Tradarii si Pactizarii with the communist regime and unfortunately prominent leaders were among those who chose this last path: Mihai Sadoveanu, Mihail Ralea, Horea Hulubei, ND Cocea etc. In Paris in 1948, the Grand Romanian National Lodge in exile is reorganized, fraternally received by the Grand Loge de France, where it will establish until 1993, when it will return to Bucharest and reopen its Lodges. This Obedience will represent Romanian Freemasonry in exile and will be recognized as such by the International Masonic powers including the United States. Prestigious Masonic personalities will be part of the Grand Romanian National Lodge in Exile, the only representative of the Traditional Romanian Freemasonry and the First Obedience founded in 1880. Thus we can cite Jan Pangal, Marcel Gavrilescu, Nicolae Meta, Alfred Cerchez, Jan Vitianu, Alexandru Chiriceanu, Mihai Musceleanu and especially the Grand Master and Sovereign Grand Commander Marcel Schapira. After the fall of the communist regime, in December 1989, a period of uncertainty opens, the Grand Romanian National Lodge in exile, considers that the conditions to return are not yet met and delays the reopening of the lodges in the country. After several visits made in Romania, by the Sovereign Grand Commander and Grand Master Marcel Schapira, on May 7, 1993, in Bucharest, the most Illustrious Representatives of Romanian Freemasonry, Marcel Schapira, Lieutenant Grand Commander Dan Amedeo Lazarescu, Grand Secretary Mihai Musceleanu, Grand Chancellor, Vladimir Boanta, Grand Guardian of the Seals, Alexandru Chiriceanu, publishes a protocol in which he solemnly announces that the Grand Romanian National Lodge, returns to Romania as an Independent Traditional Masonic Power. During the same period, 3 Lodges, newly established in Romania, under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy, which through the person of its Grand Master, Giuliano di Bernardo, will assist in Bucharest, will organize a new obedience, which through the published announcement itself, "lights up ", Shows that it is a new obedience. This New Obedience, the Grand National Lodge of Romania, will then tendentiously and grossly falsify the historical data as being the successor of the Grand Romanian National Lodge founded in 1880. Starting with this date, the two obediences, the Traditional one, the Great Romanian National Lodge, coming from exile, from France and the only continuator of the Romanian Masonic tradition and representation in the world for 45 years, during the cruel communist dictatorship and the new Obedience, the Great The National Lodge of Romania will exist in parallel. In fact, the very ignition of the lights in May 1993 of a new obedience by the Grand Orient of Italy, at that time recognized by UGLE (United Grand Lodge of England) later the treaty of recognition was broken and Freemasonry that supported this new establishment, is a violation of the very Masonic rules, otherwise arbitrarily enacted by the United Grand Lodge of England, which say that on a territory where there is a Traditional Grand Lodge, previously recognized by UGLE, a new Obedience cannot be opened. This is the case of the Romanian Grand National Lodge, which had been recognized in 1930 by UGLE and which had been the only representative in the world of the true Romanian Freemasonry. In 1996, in order to differentiate between the two obediences, which bore the same name MLNR, the traditional Romanian Grand National Lodge, the only representative of the Romanian Freemasonry, founded in 1880, will change its name into the United National Grand Lodge of Romania (MLNUR ), having as Grand Master Titus Nicoara. In 2000, in July, the United Grand National Lodge of Romania, led by Titus Nicoara and the Grand National Lodge of Romania, the new obedience, Italian-American chain, recognized by UGLE, led by Gheorghe Comanescu, will sign a reunification protocol. The new Grand Master of the Grand National Lodge of Romania, Eugen Chirovici, elected in October 2000, will sign in January 2001, the protocol of final unification of the unification of the two obediences. But this was not to the liking of an evil couple, Andre Szakvary and Anca Nicolescu, who had practically seized the leadership of the Grand National Lodge of Romania since 1997, when they removed Dan Amedeo Lazarescu, Sovereign Grand Commander and manipulated the Grand Master in practice. Titus Nicoara. They will organize a coup, temporarily appointing as Grand Master the housekeeper of the Szakvary-Nicolescu couple, named Liviu Manecan. He will later be replaced by Professor Stetiu, who in 2005 will resign from his second term, declaring that he cannot lead an Obedience led by a Szakvary-Nicolescu couple, something not found in any other Obedience. In 2005, following his resignation, Dr. Doru Manu will be elected. In January 2006, Brother Bartolomeu Constantin Savoiu returned permanently to Romania from France. He is promoted by the President of Romania, Brigadier General (r), for his services to Romania and the lobbying done in France for Romania, from the positions he holds in the Gaullist Party and in the civil society in France. He left for France in 1970, where he has a civil, social career, trade union leader in the French Confederation of Politicians, is elected a member of the Central Committee, Gaullist National Council, 1985-1995, Judge at the Labor Court, Paris, 1993-2002 , French Foreign Trade Adviser, 1994-2010. For his merits he will be decorated by President Francois MITTERAND in 1990, with the National Order of Merit in the rank of Knight (only 20 years after his arrival in France) and by President Jacques CHIRAC in 2003, with the order of the Legion of Honor in The rank of Knight. General Bartolomeu Constantin SAVOIU was initiated into Freemasonry on October 28, 1976, in Paris at the Grande Loge De France, Rue Puteaux. Grande Loge De France is one of the oldest French Obediences founded in 1738, merged in 1804 with the Grand Orient of France at the request of Emperor Napoleon I and reopened as an Independent Obedience in 1894. In 2004, Brother Constantin SAVOIU will leave the Grande Loge De France to enter the Grande Loge Nationale de France, Rue Christine de Pisan Paris, where he will remain until 2009 when he will resign, being elected Grand Master of the Grand National Lodge of Romania. It should be mentioned that La Grande Loge Nationale Francaise is in a treaty of friendship and recognition with UGLE. General SAVOIU will be elected in January 2007, together with Brother Horia Nestorescu Balcesti, Deputy Grand Master of MLNUR and in the Convention of March 29, 2008, Grand Master. He will immediately undertake an action of reconstruction of Obedience which will result in the elimination of the characters who gravitated around the Szakvary-Nicolescu couple and who had brought MLNUR into a deep impasse. A few months later, at an Extraordinary Congress of MLNUR, he will be unanimously reconfirmed as Grand Master, and the convent will approve the exclusion of the factional group Szakvary-Nicolescu, Manecan. A long legal procedure will follow, completed in 2014, with a final and irrevocable decision of the Bucharest Tribunal confirming the election of General SAVOIU in March 2008 as Grand Master and the exclusion of the group contesting this election. In 2010, the United Grand National Lodge, resumed its original name of the Romanian Grand National Lodge, with the 1880s, to signify the historical continuity of the Masonic tradition preserved by the Romanian Grand National Lodge in exile, returned in 1993 to Romania. A new Supreme Council RSAA of the 33rd and Last Degree, is organized with the patent of the Illustrious Brother and Important Representative of the Romanian Freemasonry, Marcel SCHAPIRA. Characters such as Lucian Cornescu-RING, who had been expelled from French Freemasonry by Grand Master Marcel SCHAPIRA, Bogdan GAMALET and a number of their supporters for behavior contrary to Masonic rules are excluded. He is elected Sovereign Grand Commander Too Illustrious Our Brother, Horia Nestorescu Balcesti. In 2012, following an opinion given by the Congress of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Lausanne, Switzerland, which called for the continuity of the Rite and for good cooperation between the two Bodies, the Blue Lodges, the Grand Council and the Higher Grades 4-33, the Supreme Council it is desirable that the same person perform the same functions of Grand Master and Sovereign Grand Commander, General SAVOIU is also elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, Brother Horia Nestorescu Balcesti becoming Sovereign Grand Commander of Honor. On December 13, 2014 he signed in Bucharest, within the Winter Convention of MLNR 1880 and the Founding Manifesto of the Great Universal Masonic Alliance - Universal Grand Masonic Alinace (UGMA) In the years following MLNR 1880, he signed treaties of alliance with the Grand Lodges of Serbia, Macedonia, Italy, United States, Brazil, Paraguay. UGMA is consolidating and 2020 will be the year of a Great World Congress, in which the Free and Independent Obediences together with all the other invited Obediences, will affirm the principle of a freemason involved in the life of the society in the fight for Freedom, Equality, Fraternity and Prosperity.