What is Freemasonry?

Freemasons meet in lodges to think together about people and society. They use conversation, symbols and rituals to examine their own views. The aim is to learn to listen, think independently and act more responsibly, even when we disagree. Masonic traditions vary; for our lodge, freedom of conscience, humanism and solidarity are central.

From Comenius to the present

Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670) believed that education and mutual understanding could help improve the human condition. Amid the religious wars of his time, he hoped for a more peaceful world. He was not a Freemason: modern Freemasonry emerged after his death. His concern for education and human responsibility nevertheless inspired Freemasons much later.

The Masonic tradition took shape in Enlightenment Europe. In 1717, London lodges formed a Grand Lodge; their Constitutions of 1723 emphasised tolerance, education and personal improvement. Lodges spread from England to France, where the Grand Orient de France took its name in 1773, and to the Czech lands. Lodges operated in eighteenth-century Prague and Brno; some supported charity, science and the arts. An imperial ban ended their activities in the Habsburg monarchy in 1794.

Independent Czechoslovakia later gave Freemasonry room to grow again. Czech- and German-speaking lodges existed alongside each other, and their members maintained European ties, including with France. It was then that Freemasons also embraced Comenius and sought connections between his work and their ideals. The crisis of 1938 and the Nazi threat interrupted this growth. Some lodges resumed after the war, only to cease work again under pressure from the Communist regime in 1951. Freemasonry could develop freely in the Czech lands once more after 1989. Some members of our lodge remember that renewal firsthand; the MEH lodge was founded in 2021 within the Grand Orient de France.

Curious about what this means for us? Read about our lodge or about joining.

Further reading: Comenius and interwar Czechoslovak Freemasons, the beginnings of modern Freemasonry, lodges in the eighteenth-century Czech lands, the history of the Grand Lodge of the Czech Republic and the principles of the Grand Orient de France.