AHEPA: A Masonic Organization at Odds with Orthodoxy

ΕΑΝ ΠΡΟΤΙΜΑΤΕ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΠΑΤΗΣΤΕ ΤΗ ΣΗΜΑΙΑ ΣΤΟ ΚΑΤΩ ΜΕΡΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΟΘΟΝΗΣ

OUR MAIN PHOTO: From a recent “celebration” of AHEPA at St. Nicholas WTC. Did you notice that Fr. Samuel Davis (4th from the left) makes a triangle sign with his fingers? Is this a Masonic sign, Fr. Davis? Please explain yourself.

The Orthodox Church’s Unbroken Witness Against Freemasonry. What Does AB Elpidophoros Have to Say? Does he endorse Freemasonry or not? He has to take a clear position – he cannot wear his “Phanariot” hat and try to be all things to all people! 

By Helleniscope’s Editorial Team

For more than a century, the Orthodox Church has spoken clearly and consistently about Freemasonry.  In June 1930, a Pan‑Orthodox Council convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Photios II at Mount Athos (Vatopedi Monastey) – with representatives from all autocephalous Orthodox Churches – unanimously declared Freemasonry to be a “false and anti‑Christian system” incompatible with the Orthodox faith.  This teaching has never been revised, softened, or contradicted by any subsequent council.

From an Orthodox perspective, a person cannot simultaneously give allegiance to the Christian faith and to the philosophical system of Freemasonry. Christ Himself teaches that one cannot serve two masters. Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13.  The Masonic concept of a generic “Supreme Being,” whom AHEPA also invokes, stands in direct contrast to the Church’s confession of the Holy Trinity.  AHEPA’s occasional references to the “divinity of Jesus Christ” do not resolve this contradiction, because the Orthodox Church affirms far more than a generic acknowledgment of Christ’s divinity; it proclaims Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  John 14:16.

AHEPA’s foundational texts, including George Demeter’s AHEPA Manual, present a worldview shaped by Masonic categories such as the “Great Architect of the Universe” and “three supreme monuments – Truth, Honor, and Justice.”  These concepts are not neutral.  They reflect a philosophical system that claims to transcend all religions, including Christianity, and that proposes a universal spiritual path apart from the revelation of the Triune God.

The Church’s concern should not be with the personal sincerity of individual Ahepans.  Many undoubtedly believe they can reconcile their membership with their Orthodox faith.  The issue, however, is doctrinal consistency: one cannot simultaneously belong to a faith that proclaims the unique revelation of Jesus Christ and to an organization whose rituals and teachings are rooted in a religious naturalism that the Church has formally rejected.

Like all Masonic lodges, AHEPA presents itself as a civic, philanthropic, and patriotic society.  Philanthropy and patriotism are virtues the Church wholeheartedly supports. But these good works cannot obscure the organization’s Masonic structure, symbolism, and ideology – elements that the Orthodox Church has repeatedly identified as incompatible with Christian belief.  The Church’s critique is not about charitable activities; it is about the spiritual framework in which those activities are embedded.

The Orthodox Church has never wavered in its assessment: Freemasonry is not merely a fraternal club or a philosophical lodge.  It is a system with religious claims, rituals, and doctrines that contradict the Christian faith.  For this reason, the Church has consistently instructed the faithful to avoid Masonic organizations, including those that present themselves primarily as civic associations.  As recently as October 1996, the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece denounced Freemasonry as a “pagan religion” incompatible with Christianity, characterized as an “anti-Christ system.”  [Ekklesia, v. 73 (1996), pp. 673-74].

Recent efforts to portray AHEPA as a “pillar” of the Church, or to integrate Masonic‑derived symbolism into Orthodox life, stand in direct tension with the clear and authoritative decisions of the Church’s councils.  No individual cleric – whether priest or bishop – has the authority to overturn the conciliar teaching of the Orthodox Church on this matter.

The Church’s position is not extremist, novel, or marginal.  It is the only position ever articulated by the Orthodox Church regarding Freemasonry.  Faithfulness to that teaching requires clarity, consistency, and pastoral concern for the spiritual well‑being of the faithful.

FREEMASONRY IS CONTRARY TO ORTHODOXY

Freemasonry has always been denounced by the Orthodox Church. On October 12, 1933, the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece issued a unanimous and unambiguous condemnation of Freemasonry.  The encyclical is as pertinent and urgent today as it was then.  It is published in the December 4, 1933 issue of Ekklesia, the synod’s official organ.  Translated into English, and keeping its original citations, it states:

“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 it literally, that “Freemasonry is the only survival of the ancient mysteries and can be called the guardian of them” [Ward, Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, pp. 347-350];  “Freemasonry is a direct offspring of the Egyptian mysteries” [Leadbeater, C.W., Freemasonry and its Ancient Mystic Rites, 1926]; “the humble workshop of the Masonic lodge is nothing else than the caves and darkness of the cedars of India and the unknown depths of the Pyramids and the crypts of the magnificent temples of Isis” [Sokos, G., speech published in the Freemasons’ periodical, Pythagoras, v. 7, p. 19];  “the Greek mysteries of Freemasonry, having passed along the luminous roads of knowledge under the mystery founders Prometheus, Dionysius and Orpheus, formulated the eternal laws of the Universe” [Skalieris, G., Journal on the 50-year anniversary of Pythagoras, pp. 136-142].

Such a link between Freemasonry and ancient pagan cults 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.  [“Rituals of Symbolic Degrees,” Sunrise of Athens, 1891, pp. 100, et seq.]  According to the confession of a prominent teacher of Freemasonry, Hiram is “like Osiris, Mithra and Bacchus, one of the personifications of the Sun”  [Clavel, F.T.B., Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie, 2nd ed., 1843, pp. 54, 56; Ragonn J.M., Rituel du Grade de Maître, 1859, p. 9; Lenoir, Alexandre, La Franche-Maçonnerie rendue à sa véritable origine, 1814, p. 266].

Thus, Freemasonry is, as admitted, 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” [Sokos, G., op cit., pp. 19-20] and as temples of virtue and wisdom where the Supreme Being is worshipped and the Truth is taught [Freemasonry Handbook, p. 27].

It possesses its own religious rituals, such as initiation rituals, memorial rituals, installation rituals, and rituals for the inauguration of its tectonic temples; its own hierarchical order, with chaplains, altars, symbols, and “temple stands”… that constitute it as a cult of naturalism.

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, at this point, it is also an offspring and continuation of ancient idolatrous mysteries that accepted worshippers of all gods for initiation.  But like the mystery cults, in spite of their apparent spirit of tolerance and acceptance of foreign gods, leads 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, left exactly as God form it.  [“Build the altar of the Lord your God with unhewn stones, and offer on it burnt offerings.”  Deut. 27:6.]

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 intention 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 like “putting no limit in the search for 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, while Christianity, as a religion of Revelation, possesses its rational and super-rational dogmas and truths, it asks for faith first and grounds its moral structure in supernatural Divine Grace; Freemasonry has only natural truth and brings to the knowledge of its initiates free thinking and investigation through reason alone.  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.

[In 1930], the Pan-orthodox Commission, which was convened on Mount Athos [by Ecumenical Patriarch Photios II] and in which the representatives of all the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches took part, characterized Freemasonry as a ‘false and anti-Christian system.’”  Εκκλησία, Dec. 4, 1933, p. 1-3.

Upon issuing this encyclical, His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostom of Athens and All Greece, president of the Synod, declared:

“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 . . .  Consequently, clergymen cannot be permitted to take part in this association.  I consider it 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 connection with it, for Christianity alone is the religion that 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. . . . It is not lawful to belong at the same time to Christ and to search for redemption and moral 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 Holy Synod 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.” Id.

CONCLUSION

What are Orthodox believers to think when a Masonic‑structured organization like AHEPA is welcomed into our church under the banner of a “non‑sectarian Supreme Being” who supposedly transcends the Triune God?  Are we truly expected to accept that AHEPA is a harmless philanthropic or patriotic association, let alone a “second pillar” of the Church?

Are we to set aside the Gospel of Jesus Christ and instead look for spiritual direction from long‑time AHEPA leadership, whose highest Masonic affiliations are publicly acknowledged, who openly celebrate the organization’s Masonic origins, and who preside over an institution marked by opaque finances and extraordinary personal compensation?

Are Orthodox Christians now to bow before titles and ranks drawn from Masonic ritual, as though these could coexist with the worship of the one true God?

These are not abstract questions. They define the spiritual crisis facing the Greek Orthodox Church in America today.  When ecclesiastical leadership embraces organizations whose principles contradict the decisions of Pan‑Orthodox councils, the faithful are left to wonder whether the Church’s own teachings still govern its life.  The Orthodox Church has spoken clearly on Freemasonry.  The question now is whether we will remain faithful to that teaching or surrender our inheritance to forces that stand outside the Faith of our Fathers.

June 22, 2026, www.helleniscope.com

DISCLAIMER: The views and statements expressed in this article constitute constitutionally protected opinions of this author.

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