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The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, commonly referred to as the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts and abbreviated GLMA, is the main governing body of Freemasonry within Massachusetts, and maintains Lodges in other jurisdictions overseas, namely Panama, Chile, the People's Republic of China (meeting in Tokyo, Japan), and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. It is considered to be the third oldest Masonic Grand Lodge in existence (after the United Grand Lodge of England, which dates its own existence from the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717, and the Grand Lodge of Ireland (1725), interpreting the 1733 warrant, creating Henry Price the Provincial Grand Master of New England, as the creation of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Price's successors as Provincial Grand Master, Robert Tomlinson, Thomas Oxnard, Jeremy Gridley and John Rowe, were all appointed (in 1736, 1743, 1755 and 1768 respectively) by the Moderns' Grand Master in London. The Provincial Grand Lodge, which, due to the American Revolution, held no meeting during the period 1775 to 1787, finally merged with its counterpart Antient Provincial Grand Lodge, created in 1769 by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. On the date of that merger, 5 March 1792, the newly created body first exercised its new sovereign powers by electing a Grand Master in the person of John Cutler, and by adopting the name ''The Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts''. == First Provincial Grand Lodge == Freemasonry in Massachusetts dates to the early 18th century, and the foundation of its Grand Lodge is wound through with the threads of the (then) ongoing disputes between the Moderns and the Antients. After the formation of the Premier Grand Lodge of England (later referred to as the Moderns) in 1717, and the amalgamation of individual Lodges into that body, Lodges and Masons in the Boston area asked one Brother Henry Price to go to London, and petition the Grand Lodge for a Warrant in order to be considered regular, in accordance with a regulation dated in 1721. Price did so, and returned in the spring of 1733 with more than just a Warrant for an individual Lodge - he was made the "Provincial Grand Master of New England and Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging" by the Grand Master, The Right Honorable and Right Worshipful Anthony Browne, 6th Viscount Montague. This Provincial Grand Lodge was historically known as St. John's Grand Lodge, and chartered numerous Lodges in the Colonies. The first one, which was chartered in Boston in 1733, was known and recorded as First Lodge in the English rolls of 1734, and is now known as St. John's Lodge. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grand Lodge of Massachusetts」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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