Extract from World of Freemasonry (2 vols) Bob Nairn FREEMASONRY IN GREECE Introduction Ancient Greece is considered to be the foundational culture of Western Civilization. Ancient Greek civilization has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe and the Americas1. Its history is of a country which has had to fight many wars of independence against the Persians, Romans, Ottoman Empire and the Germans. Freemasons have been in the forefront of these struggles in modern times. In recent times Greece has been beset by unstable Government and financial crises. History 776 BC, the date of the first Olympic Games in 776 BC is traditionally the beginning of the Ancient Greek period which ended with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The structure was that each City in Greece was independent although some were subordinate to others. The Persian Wars2 (500–448 BC) started when the Ionian Greek cities revolted from the Persian Empire and were supported by some of the mainland Cities, eventually led by Athens. The more famous battles of this war include Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. The period that follows is normally classed as Hellenistic which ended when Rome annexed the Greek peninsular in 146 BC. Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. The division of the Roman Empire into East and West and the subsequent collapse of the Western Empire strengthened the position of the Greeks. When Constantine the Great turned Byzantium into the new capital to be known as Constantinople, the city became the center of Greek Orthodox culture. From the late 8th century, the Byzantine Empire began to recover from the devastating impact of successive invasions, mainly from Persians and Slavs. By the middle of the 9th century the cities enjoyed improved security and effective central control. The 11th and 12th centuries are said to be the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Greece. Many of the most important Byzantine churches in and around Athens, for example, were built during these two centuries, and this reflects the growth of urbanization in Greece during this period. 1 Wikipedia 2 Herodotus's “Histories” R J Nairn C 2012 Greece The Ottoman Empire brought about the fall of the Greek Byzantine Empire in 1453, and the Ottomans ruled Greece until the early 19th century. In the early months of 1821, the Greeks declared their independence but did not achieve it until 1829. The Great Powers first tried to preserve the status quo of the Ottoman Empire, but soon changed their stance and scores of non-Greeks volunteered to fight for the cause. On 20 October 1827, a combined British, French and Russian naval force destroyed the Ottoman and Egyptian armada. The Russian minister of foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias, himself a Greek, returned home as President of the new Republic. After his assassination the European powers helped turn Greece into a monarchy and the first King, Otto, came from Bavaria and the second, George I, from Denmark. During the 19th and early 20th centuries Greece enlarged its boundaries to include the ethnic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire. The Ionian Islands were returned by Britain in 1863 and Thessaly was ceded by the Ottomans. As a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 Epirus, southern Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean Islands were annexed into the Kingdom of Greece. Another enlargement followed in 1947, when Greece annexed the Dodecanese Islands from Italy. In World War I, Greece sided with the Allied powers against Ottoman Empire and Germany. In the war's aftermath, the Great Powers awarded parts of Asia Minor to Greece, including the city of İzmir, which had a large Greek population. However, the Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, overthrew the Ottoman government, organized a military assault on the Greek troops and defeated them. Immediately afterwards, over one million native Greeks of Turkey had to leave for Greece as a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Despite the country's numerically small and ill-equipped armed forces, Greece made a decisive contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II. At the start of the war Italy invaded Greece in 1940, but Greek troops repelled the invaders after a bitter struggle. This was the first Allied victory in the war. Soon after, troops from Germany, Bulgaria, and Italy successfully invaded Greece, through Yugoslavia, overcoming Greek, British, Australian, and New Zealand units. In 1941, the Germans attempted to seize Crete with a large attack by paratroops but faced heavy resistance. The Greeks delayed German military plans against the Soviet Union. The heavy losses of German paratroopers led the Germans to launch no further large-scale air-invasions. During the years of Occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany, thousands of Greeks died in direct combat, in concentration camps, or of starvation. The occupiers murdered the greater part of the Jewish community despite efforts by the Greek Orthodox Church and many other Christian Greeks to shelter the Jews. The economy of Greece was devastated. In August 1944, the German Army in Greece began withdrawing northwestward from Greece into Yugoslavia and Albania to avoid being cut off in Greece by Russian forces and the German occupation of Greece ended. The Resistance ELAS seized control of Athens on 12 October 1944. British troops had already landed on 4 October in Patras, and entered Athens at 14 October 1944[16]. The returning Greek government in exile had been formed under Western Allied auspices in Cairo and included six KKE-affiliated ministers. The Greek Civil War was fought between 1944 and 1949 in Greece between the Governmental forces of Greece supported by the United Kingdom at first, and later by the USA, and the communist-led forces, mainly the former resistance organization (ELAS) controlled by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).. The victory of the Government forces led to Greece's membership in NATO, while relationships with its Communist northern neighbors, both pro-Soviet and neutral, became strained. Robert John Nairn C 2012 Page 2 Greece In 1967, the Greek military seized power in a coup d'état, overthrew the centre right government of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos and established the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. In 1973, the régime abolished the Greek monarchy. In 1975, following a referendum to confirm the deposition of King Constantine II, a democratic republican constitution came into force. Since the restoration of democracy, the stability and economic prosperity of Greece have grown. Greece joined the European Union in 1981 and adopted the euro as its currency in 2001. From late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations due to strong increase in government debt levels. In 2010, the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund agreed on a €110 billion loan for Greece, conditional on the implementation of harsh austerity measures. In 2011, Eurozone leaders also agreed on a proposal to write off 50% of Greek debt owed to private creditors. These austerity measures have proved extremely unpopular with the Greek public, precipitating demonstrations and civil unrest. There are widespread fears that a Greek default on its debt would have global repercussions, endangering the economies of many other countries in the European Union, threatening the stability of the European currency, the euro, and possibly plunging the world into another recession. It has been speculated that the crisis will force Greece to abandon the euro and bring back its former currency, the drachma. A summary of Greek historical periods is shown below:- Pre-Christian Era Christian Era 400 400 1400 1800 800 600 200 200 600 800 1000 1200 1600 2000 Cities Byzantine Period Greece Persian Roman Ottoman German Occupation Occupation Occupation Occupation History of Freemasonry in Greece The history of Freemasonry in Greece3 begins in 1782 with the first Lodge to have been erected on Greek soil, which was Lodge Benevolence established in Corfu, on the Ionian Islands under the Grand Mother Lodge of Verona of the French Scottish Reformed Rite. This lodge became very soon dormant when the Venetian Republic started persecuting Freemasonry. It was revived in 1797 when the French occupied the Ionians for a brief period and became again dormant when the islands were under Russian occupation, until 1806 when the French came to the Islands for the second time. Then it was revived and was united with lodge Filogenia, which was working in Corfu, under the new name “Friendship of the nation”. Then in 1811 Count Dionyssios de Roma applied to the Grand Orient of France to place this lodge under its aegis and it became a „Provincial Mother Lodge‟ with the authority to create new lodges in the area. Eventually, after the beginning of the British Protection in 1815, Roma and the other Freemasons of the time, decided to declare the lodge as the Serene Grand Orient of Greece. That was a very bold move as, at the time, there was no country existing under the name of „Greece‟. Roma invited the Duke of Sussex, Grand Master UGLE, to be Grand Master of the new Grand Orient. Roma was trying to obtain legitimacy of the new body and serving a political purpose as the Revolution was already in people‟s minds and the Ionian Islands were the only part of Greece that was beyond the reach of the Ottomans. 3 ’Freemasonry in Greece (1782-2003) and the Greek War of Independence (1821-1828)” Andreas C.