A JEWEL IN THE CROWN: CELEBRATING THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF FIAT LUX LODGE Andrew Hammer, PM Alba Lodge No. 222
by the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, and following the same Masonic code that all D.C. lodges do.
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In its founding documents, the Lodge called for it’s membership to be “diverse, balanced, integrated, and universally represented,” further stating that, “The Lodge shall emphatically avoid becoming lopsided by national origin or any other factor.” That seems to have worked out well over the years, as Fiat Lux is surely one of the few lodges in the world where its Masters have come from every inhabitable continent. Our location in such an international city helps in that regard, but as one knows, it is the state of mind, the active pursuit of inclusivity, that truly brings the achievement of such a goal.
s we all prepare to return to our lodges, and the joy of face to face (even if masked) Masonic labor, one lodge is especially grateful for the return date decided upon by our Grand Master. Fiat Lux Lodge No. 1717 was consecrated on June 30, 2001. The prospect of holding a Zoom meeting to celebrate its twentieth anniversary was less than inspiring, but now the lodge will be returning to labor just in time to make its June 19th stated communication a celebration of both that milestone and the return to normalcy. The story of Fiat Lux is a pleasant reminder of so much of what one appreciates about Freemasonry in the District of Columbia. It is the only lodge in the United States that confers the degrees using the Emulation Ritual in English— we have five others in DC that also work Emulation, but in different languages— with the additional benefit of striving to provide the cultural environment of a lodge working under the English Constitution. For those who may be unfamiliar with that terminology, Fiat Lux is, for all practical purposes, an English lodge in the nation’s capital, using the ritual and operating principles of the United Grand Lodge of England, while being proudly chartered
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The Lodge cannot claim to be first among those who built our system of universal Masonry here in the District. What it can claim, however, is to be the second brainchild of Right Worshipful Brother Victor A. Adegbite, who was one of the key architects of that system. RWB Adegbite always believed that we should have other lodges working different rituals, as is done in many grand jurisdictions throughout the world. A decade earlier, he had worked tirelessly with other distinguished brethren to help our second international lodge, Sojourner
RWB Victor A. Adegbite, the guiding light of Fiat Lux Lodge No. 1717
Kilwinning Lodge No. 1798, come into being using the Modern Scottish ritual. Adegbite thought it only right and proper that an English Emulation lodge be created, both for those brothers in our area for whom that ritual was their “mother tongue,” so to speak, and to further enrich our grand jurisdiction by giving D.C. Masons the opportunity to experience an English lodge without needing to purchase a plane ticket. In 1998, RWB Adegbite reached out to three other brothers and friends to help draw the plans for what would become Fiat Lux Lodge. Throughout the next two years, then Worshipful Brothers Kwame Acquaah, John Orleans-Lindsay, and Worshipful and Reverend Brother Daniel Darko met to discuss every aspect of the Lodge and how it would be built. By January of 2000, they were ready to take the next step, and requested a meeting with then Grand Master Mansour Hatefi and Grand Secretary Stuart Miner to
