Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta: Encyclopedia II - Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta - The early years of freemasonry in Malta

Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta - The early years of freemasonry in Malta

Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta - The Knights of St. John

Freemasonry in Malta began in 1730 when "Parfait Harmonie", the first warranted lodge, was formed under the Marseilles (France) masonic jurisdiction.

By 1741, freemasonry was established in Malta, and the Inquisition persecuted the freemasons, causing several knights to leave Malta. Most of the information about freemasonry in that period comes from the proceedings of the Inquisition.

Many knights of the Order of St. John and some of the Maltese nobility were freemasons. In 1756, the Grand Master of the Order was a freemason named E. Pinto de Fonseca. De Rohan, who was Grandmaster of the Order of St. John between 1775 and 1797, is reported also to have been a freemason, and is said to have helped the spread of freemasonry in Malta and to have been heavily censured by the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. The first Masonic lodges operated in Malta under French warrants generally obtained from Marseilles, but under the guidance of Count von Kollowrat, the Scotch Lodge of St. John of Marseilles petitioned the Grand Lodge of the Moderns in England to obtain an English warrant on the 30th June, 1788. This lodge noted in its petition that the most important members of the Order of St. John ranked amongst its membership. The lodge obtained an English warrant as the Lodge of St. John of Secrecy and Harmony. This lodge ceased to function sometime before 1813.

Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta - The French period

After the 1798 – 1800 French occupation of Malta, many French soldiers were incarcerated as prisoners of war. In 1811, they established a Masonic lodge named Les Amis en Captivite under a warrant from Marseilles. In that same year, the lodge was attacked by rioters, following exhortations from priests that the freemasons were responsible for the prevailing drought and disease stricken horses.

Following repatriation of the bulk of prisoners between April and August 1814, the lodge members were essentially non-French. On the 6 October 1819, the lodge obtained a warrant from United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE). The lodge was permitted to work in Italian. In 1820, the English Governor on the island, Maitland, suspended the lodge by reason of infiltration by the carbonari, an Italian secret society which purported to subvert Italian states. It nevertheless appears on the official list of UGLE up to 1824.

Some maintain that Napoleon Bonaparte was initiated into freemasonry in Malta in 1798 in a French Regimental Lodge, most likely Army Philadelphe Lodge. Others hold the view that he was initiated in Egypt. A third view is that he was never a freemason.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The early years of freemasonry in Malta", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki