Grand Orient du Québec

Late 2015 I started to set up this website. I looked around the internet to find information about mixed gender and women-only Freemasonry worldwide. Since then I only now and then ‘discover’ an organisation that I hadn’t listed. Recently I had to update the page about Canada, because I hadn’t heard of the Grand Orient du Québec.

Somebody who wanted to join the sub-Reddit is a prospective member of this order. That member also gave some information about the order:

In 1773 the Grande loge de France went through a profound transformation.

It embraced laïcité as a core value. There is no word for it in English but it’s like stricter secularism. It means that government must not touch religion at all instead of simply being neutral. This means that politicians aren’t allowed to say God bless and be seen with religion in any way. It’s a very important French value since the revolution.

It also removed the requirement of believing in a supreme bein, allowed women to join, and democratically elected it’s grands maîtres. Because of all those changes it renamed itself. It was of course opposed by other Masonic organizations that did not like those changes.

It is a progressive, laïc, mixed-gender, republican (as opposed to monarchist) organization. Maybe you heard about it under the name French Rite? It is the largest Masonic entity in France.

The Grand Orient du Québec (GOdQ) was founded by members of the Grand Orient de France (GOdF). We’re unfortunately a minority here as most of the lodges in Quebec are Anglo-saxon.

The Grand Orient du Québec has two lodges in Montréal, both with with another ritual and a study lodge. You can find their website here (which is in French).

So now you also heard about the Grand Orient du Québec. Join us on Reddit to ask your questions about it.