My email inbox has been inundated today with messages saying that the Grand Orient de France has voted this weekend to withdraw its treaty of amity with the Grand Orient of the United States. I have no real independent verification of this today, but if true, it's not a good development for the GOofUS.
The Grand Orient of the US was formed in 2005, and received a patent from the GOdF in 2008. In spite of shifting claims over the last five and a half years, it is unclear how many lodges are really at work under the GOofUs, and how many members it has, outside of Halcyon Lodge in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Grand Orient de France is the largest Masonic obedience in that country with approximately 50,000 members, and is not recognized as regular by the vast majority of mainstream Masonic grand lodges around the world, primarily for its policy of not requiring members to have a belief in a Supreme Being, and more recently for allowing lodges to accept women as members.
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