Freemasonry: Official Statement of the Church of Greece (1933)
It is clear from the following statement that Orthodox
Christians must disavow the Masonic movement and resign from it
if they have joined it in ignorance of its goals. Pike, in his Morals
and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry tells us that "Every Masonic Lodge is a
temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in
religion." (p. 213) "Masonry, around whose altars the
Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the Brahim, the followers of
Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in
prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalism." (p.
226) "Masonry, like all religions, all the Mysteries,
conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages or
Elect and uses false explanations and interpretations of its
symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled." (p.
105 )
Patriarch Athenagoras and Archbishop Iakovos have frequently
quoted or rephrased the following from Chapter 10 of the above
work. "No human being can with certainty say, in the clash
and conflict of hostile faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that
he is surely in possession of it, so every one should feel that
it is quite possible and another equally honest and sincere with
himself, and yet holding a contrary opinion, may himself be in
possession of the truth." One needs only to read the
Christmas 1967, statement of Patriarch Athenagoras or Archbishop
Iakovos’ sermon at St. Patrick's Cathedral, January 19,
1969, to realize that they continually expound Masonic doctrine
which is opposed to sound Orthodox teaching. The very ecumenical
movement's founders and chief exponents are members of the
Masonic order which inspires them and gives them their
guidelines. Is it no wonder then that Orthodoxy becomes
unimportant to these people?
Read and reread this statement in order to understand the
correct Orthodox opinion in this matter.
The Official Statement
The Bishops of the Church of Greece in their session of
October 12, 1933, concerned themselves with the study and
examination of the secret international organization,
Freemasonry. They heard with attention the introductory
exposition of the Commission of four Bishops appointed by the
Holy Synod at its last session; also the opinion of the
Theological Faculty of the University of Athens, and the
particular opinion of Prof. Panag Bratsiotis which was appended
thereto. They also took into consideration publications on this
question in Greece and abroad. After a discussion they arrived at
the following conclusions, accepted unanimously by all the
Bishops.
"Freemasonry is not simply a philanthropic union or a
philosophical school, but constitutes a mystagogical system which
reminds us of the ancient heathen mystery-religions and
cults—from which it descends and is their continuation and
regeneration. This is not only admitted by prominent teachers in
the lodges, but they declare it with pride, affirming literally:
"Freemasonry is the only survival of the ancient mysteries
and can be called the guardian of them;" Freemasonry is a
direct offspring of the Egyptian mysteries; "the humble
workshop of the Masonic Lodge is nothing else than the caves and
the darkness of the cedars of India and the unknown depths of the
Pyramids and the crypts of the magnificent temples of Isis; in
the Greek mysteries of Freemasonry, having passed along the
luminous roads of knowledge under the mysteriarchs Prometheus,
Dionysus and Orpheus, formulated the eternal laws of the
Universe!
"Such a link between Freemasonry and the ancient
idolatrous mysteries is also manifested by all that is enacted
and performed at the initiations. As in the rites of the ancient
idolatrous mysteries the drama of the labors and death of the
mystery god was repeated, and in the imitative repetition of this
drama the initiate dies together with the patron of the mystery
religion, who was always a mythical person symbolizing the Sun of
nature which dies in winter and is regenerated in spring, so it
is also, in the initiation of the third degree, of the patron of
Freemasonry Hiram and a kind of repetition of his death, in which
the initiate suffers with him, struck by the same instruments and
on the same parts of the body as Hiram. According to the
confession of a prominent teacher of Freemasonry Hiram is
"as Osiris, as Mithra, and as Bacchus, one of the
personifications of the Sun."
"Thus Freemasonry is, as granted, a mystery-religion,
quite different, separate, and alien to the Christian faith. This
is shown without any doubt by the fact that it possesses its own
temples with altars, which are characterized by prominent
teachers as "workshops which cannot have less history and
holiness than the Church" and as temples of virtue and
wisdom where the Supreme Being is worshipped and the truth is
taught. It possesses its own religious ceremonies, such as the
ceremony of adoption or the masonic baptism, the ceremony of
conjugal acknowledgement or the masonic marriage, the masonic
memorial service, the consecration of the masonic temple, and so
on. It possesses its own initiations, its own ceremonial ritual,
its own hierarchical order and a definite discipline. As may be
concluded from the masonic agapes and from the feasting of the
winter and summer solstices with religious meals and general
rejoicings, it is a physiolatric religion.
"It is true that it may seem at first that Freemasonry
can be reconciled with every other religion, because it is not
interested directly in the religion to which its initiates
belong. This is, however, explained by its syncretistic character
and proves that in this point also it is an offspring and a
continuation of ancient idolatrous mysteries which accepted for
initiation worshippers of all gods. But as the mystery religions,
in spite of the apparent spirit of tolerance and acceptance of
foreign gods, lead to a syncretism which undermined and gradually
shook confidence in other religions, thus Freemasonry today,
which seeks to embrace in itself gradually all mankind and which
promises to give moral perfection and knowledge of truth, is
lifting itself to the position of a kind of super-religion,
looking on all religions (without excepting Christianity) as
inferior to itself. Thus it develops in its initiates the idea
that only in masonic lodges is performed the shaping and the
smoothing of the unsmoothed and unhewn stone. And the fact alone
that Freemasonry creates a brotherhood excluding all other
brotherhoods outside it (which are considered by Freemasonry as
"uninstructed", even when they are Christian) proves
clearly its pretensions to be a super-religion. This means that
by masonic initiation, a Christian becomes a brother of the
Muslim, the Buddhist, or any kind of rationalist, while the
Christian not initiated in Freemasonry becomes to him an
outsider.
"On the other hand, Freemasonry in prominently exalting
knowledge and in helping free research as "putting no limit
in the search of truth" (according to its rituals and
constitution), and more than this by adopting the so-called
natural ethic, shows itself in this sense to be in sharp
contradiction with the Christian religion. For the Christian
religion exalts faith above all, confining human reason to the
limits traced by Divine Revelation and leading to holiness
through the supernatural action of grace. In other words, which
Christianity, as a religion of Revelation, possessing its
rational and superrational dogmas and truths, asks for faith
first, and grounds its moral structure on the super-natural
Divine Grace, Freemasonry has only natural truth and brings to
the knowledge of its initiates free thinking and investigation
through reason only. It bases its moral structure only on the
natural forces of man, and has only natural aims.
"Thus, the incompatible contradiction between
Christianity and Freemasonry is quite clear. It is natural that
various Churches of other denominations have taken a stand
against Freemasonry. Not only has the Western Church branded for
its own reasons the masonic movement by numerous Papal
encyclicals, but Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian communities
have also declared it to be incompatible with Christianity. Much
more has the Orthodox Catholic Church, maintaining in its
integrity the treasure of Christian faith proclaimed against it
every time that the question of Freemasonry has been raised.
Recently, the Inter-Orthodox Commission which met on Mount Athos
and in which the representatives of all the Autocephalous
Orthodox Churches took part, has characterized Freemasonry as a
"false and anti-Christian system."
The assembly of the Bishops of the Church of Greece in the
above mentioned session heard with relief and accepted the
following conclusions which were drawn from the investigations
and discussions by its President His Grace Archbishop Chrysostom
of Athens:
"Freemasonry cannot be at all compatible with
Christianity as far as it is a secret organization, acting and
teaching in mystery and secret and deifying rationalism.
Freemasonry accepts as its members not only Christians, but also
Jews and Muslims. Consequently clergymen cannot be permitted to
take part in this association. I consider as worthy of
degradation every clergyman who does so. It is necessary to urge
upon all who entered it without due thought and without examining
what Freemasonry is, to sever all connections with it, for
Christianity alone is the religion which teaches absolute truth
and fulfills the religious and moral needs of men. Unanimously
and with one voice all the Bishops of the Church of Greece have
approved what was said, and we declare that all the faithful
children of the Church must stand apart from Freemasonry. With
unshaken faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ "in whom we have our
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins,
according to the riches of His Grace, whereby He abounds to us in
all wisdom and prudence" (Ephes. 1, 7-9) possessing the
truth revealed by Him and preached by the Apostles, "not in
persuasive words of wisdom, but in the partaking in the Divine
Sacraments through which we are sanctified and saved by eternal
life, we must not fall from the grace of Christ by becoming
partakers of other mysteries. It is not lawful to belong at the
same time to Christ and to search for redemption and mora1
perfection outside Him. For these reasons true Christianity is
incompatible with Freemasonry.
"Therefore, all who have become involved in the
initiations of masonic mysteries must from this moment sever all
relations with masonic lodges and activities, being sure that
they are thereby of a certainty renewing their links with our one
Lord and Savior which were weakened by ignorance and by a wrong
sense of values. The Assembly of the Bishops of the Church of
Greece expects this particularly and with love from the initiates
of the lodges, being convinced that most of them have received
masonic initiation not realizing that by it they were passing
into another religion, but on the contrary from ignorance,
thinking that they had done nothing contrary to the faith of
their fathers. Recommending them to the sympathy, and in no wise
to the hostility or hatred of the faithful children of the
Church, the Assembly of the Bishops calls them to pray with her
from the heart in Christian love, that the one Lord Jesus Christ
"the way, the truth and the life" may illumine and
return to the truth who in ignorance have gone
astray."
St. Nectarios Educational Series, No. 22
Reprinted from: Borichevsky, Rev. Fr. Vladimir S. and Jula,
Rev. Fr. Stephen N., Masonry or Christ?, Ch. V.
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