Grand Lodge of Chile

[1] The earthquake of 1906 destroyed the original headquarters and the archives of the Grand Lodge, which determined its definitive transfer to Santiago, settling in the Club de la República.

There he received lessons from the prelate José Hipólito Salas y Toro, from the theologian Justo Donoso Vivanco, as well as from the Argentine priest Manuel Castro y Barros.

After the Conciliar seminar, he went on to study at the Instituto Nacional, under the rectorate of Antonio Varas, where he received lessons from the sociologist, politician, and educator José Victorino Lastarria.

Graduated as a lawyer on November 7, 1848, Juan de Dios Arlegui Gorbea settled in Valparaíso to exercise his profession, conquering there the honorable reputation of Jurisconsult.

Interesting at that time was the extension of Masonic lodges to the field of politics, through the inauguration of groups called Clubs de la Reforma, which functioned in Santiago and other provinces of the country from 1868 to 1871.

These clubs were true circles in which most of the ideological, social and educational transformations that society needed were debated and many of which entered the constitutional reform of the government of Federico Errázuriz Zañartu.

In 1864, when the problems caused by Napoleon III in French Freemasonry had already been overcome, official recognition was obtained by the Central Grand Orient de France.

In the capital, it settled in the city center, in the now defunct San Carlos gallery, where five lodges worked: Deber y Constancia No.