Freemasonry in Denmark

At that time, the Freemasons decided not to publish a public registry of members and to keep the minutes of the Lodge a secret.

The kings successor to the throne, Christian VII of Denmark had met several Freemasons on his Grand Tour of Europe during the 1760s, including Benjamin Franklin in London and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Denis Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvétius and Baron d'Holbach in Paris.

Following a power struggle with Gustav III of Sweden on the issue of who had the right to exercise control of the Danish Order of Freemasons, Christian VII on 29 April 1780 used his power of government to issue an order-in-council declaring, that Freemasons throughout Denmark, Norway, Schleswig and Holstein, were prohibited from recognising any foreign prince as head of the order.

However, following the adoption of a constitution build on classical liberal principles and the departure from absolutism in 1848, the protected status was lost.

Because of disagreement at the congress on how to implement the higher degrees, the Danish delegation returned home before the issue was resolved, opting instead to introduce only the three agreed upon craft-degrees.

Finally, in 1817, Prince Carl von Hessen-Kassel, then grand master, established a Scots St. Andrews lodge.

Like Strict Observance, the Swedish Rite was a system of chivalric Freemasonry created by the swede Carl Frederik Eckleff during the mid-1760s.

They attained the permission of King Frederick VII, acting as grand master, and began the practice in 1852.

In 1858 the king, himself having experienced the rituals, founded the Grand Lodge of Denmark, working the highest Templar degrees in Copenhagen.

It follows the tradition of Orient or Continental Freemasonry and works in accordance to a ritual based on the York Rite (modified version of the 1929 Ritus Hauniensis written by Grunddal Sjallung).

[7] The International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women, Le Droit Humain founded its first lodge in Scandinavia in what was then Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1912, in Copenhagen in 1917 and in Stockholm in 1918.