Independent Order of Odd Fellows
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows , IOOF for short, also Odd Fellows for short , is an internationally active, humanitarian and philanthropic , secular order .
The order is denominational and politically neutral, its members can belong to different religions and also actively pursue politics. Business, party political or denominational activities are not permitted within the order.
The ethical precepts of the order are to “visit the sick, help the afflicted, bury the dead and raise the orphans”.
The sign of the order are three chain links. These symbolize the motto "Friendship, Love and Truth", which obliges the members to do charitable work and to think and act in a humane and tolerant manner.
organization
The place of work within the order is the lodge. This is headed by a head master who is elected by the lodge, but is installed in his office by the grand lodge. The lodge decides on the admission and exclusion of members and grants the three lodge degrees. It is obliged to adhere to the statutes of the grand lodge. Members who have the highest degree of lodge can join together with brothers from other lodges in a camp. This grants three storage grades. The camp's task is to deepen the teaching of the order and to promote contact from lodge to lodge in a region or country. The camp is led by a main patriarch. Organizationally, both the lodge and the camp are directly subordinate to the grand lodge. The lodges and camps of a state are united in a grand lodge. This is led by a Grand Sire, in Germany by a Grand Master. According to their number of members, lodges and camps can delegate a number of large representatives, in Germany large representatives, to the grand lodge. Only those who have the third degree and the dignity of an old master can be elected as a grand representative. The grand lodge grants two grand lodge degrees. The resolutions of the grand lodge are binding for the lodges and camps; it also grants charter to found new camps and lodges. The Sovereign Grand Lodge , based in Winston-Salem, is the highest power in the order and is the arbiter in all questions between the grand lodges which it has given clearances. It is directed by the Sovereign Grand Master .
Surname
The origin of the name Odd Fellow is not clear and is interpreted differently. The witty Daniel Defoe (1660 to 1731), who came from bourgeois dissident circles and who fought for the people's welfare and justice, for religious and political freedom, writes about a society called Odd Fellows. In 1745 the "Gentlemen's Magazine" mentions a box for the Odd Fellows, where one can spend pleasant and stimulating evenings. A protocol of the "Loyal Aristarcus Lodge No. 9 ”with the addition“ Order of the Odd Fellows ”from March 12, 1748, it can be seen that this endeavored to unite all existing Odd Fellow lodges. Sources from 1780 report that one evening a lodge of the Odd Fellows introduced the Prince of Wales , later King George IV of Great Britain , to the order in an unceremonious manner . These are the oldest known mentions of the name "Odd Fellows" . Before 1800 individual English lodges united under the name Improved Order of Odd Fellows . After its expansion in England and America, the Wilhelm Tell Lodge, the first German-speaking Odd Fellow Lodge, was founded in the USA in 1827. Numerous others followed, with the ritual and statutes being translated into German. The name of the order was: "Independent Order of the Odd Brothers" , UOSE. After the introduction of the order in Germany, the English name Odd Fellow was initially bothered and in 1872 they also called themselves the "Independent Order of the Odd Brothers". However, it was soon discovered that this German translation was much less repulsive in the English-speaking area than in Germany, and the English name was used again a year later. Although the word “odd” in English does not emphasize the term “strange” as sharply as it does in German, attempts were made early on to find an explanation of how this term came about.
Lothammer writes that the well-known linguist Max Müller in Oxford claimed that the word arose from "added" , which means something like "added". The Odd Fellow lodges would have taken in the surplus, needy laborers who were not accepted in the large, traditional organizations. Various authors reject this version. In the Masonic lodges of that time, the brothers of the second degree were also called "Fellows". The Manchester Unity writes in a brochure about the Order: Theoretical origins include the words Hod and Ode. The former refers to henchmen in the building trade, hod carriers, the latter traces back to the custom of using odes in the rituals of the order. According to other theories, Odd means that the work of the Order is different from other associations, or that its members are somehow distinguished. Another possibility is that important professions such as cloth merchants, dyers, manufactured goods merchants and the like had their own guilds, in other branches that could not found guilds, the members joined together in Odd Fellow clubs.
Adolf Arnold wrote about the name Odd Fellow in November 1991 to GS Daniel Corrodi u. a .: “I have already read several times in reports that the name 'Odd Fellows' is derived from added Fellows. I believe there is another, more likely origin. The English word hod means something like 'paving trough' or 'paving board'. This V-shaped stick device was safely used well into the 1950s to carry mortar, bricks, etc. to the mason's work site. The man who did this was the hodman or hodfellow, and I still remember the device and the man on English construction sites well. In a small English town where I worked in the 1950s there was an Odd Fellow's Hall (the Society itself no longer existed) which had a weather vane shaped like a hod on the roof. On an old photo of this building I also found the following note: Odd Fellows incidentally was originally Hodfellows, a friendly society of those associated with bricklaying. The Odd Fellows were thus originally hodfellows, ie plaster bearers who had come together in a society. The designation friendly society indicates that it was an association for mutual help. The initial 'h' is often suppressed in English dialects and in colloquial language among lower social classes. That was certainly the case with hodfellows. This then resulted in odfellows, which makes no sense when written, which is why it was converted to odd fellow. The meaning of 'weird owl' probably suited the founders, as it concealed the true facts and only the initiated could interpret the expression. "
However, “odd” can also come from oath, which means oath or oath. Fellow is a person with whom one has a fellowship. Odd Fellow therefore means much more "confederate" than weird owl. However, it is also possible that “odd” was a short form of “od and wed” (oath and pledge) and “Odd Fellow” means a self-help organization whose members are linked to one another by a vow.
Uwe Kröger wrote in a compilation from March 2010 about the name Odd Fellow:
In order to find out why the name "Odd Fellow" was adopted, we must carefully go back to the 17th century and not try to interpret it with our current views. The word "Odd" is of Icelandic origin and had the meaning of known, remarkable, extraordinary. While the word "Fellows" referred to those people who united with one another, who had a joint fund and were partners.
The origin of the word "Odd Fellow" is thus interpreted differently, all based on guesswork. In these attempts at interpretation, however, it should be noted that the term dates back to the 17th or early 18th century.
Members
Anyone who has civil honors and rights, who is committed to the principles of the order and the laws of his state and who strives to act accordingly, can become a member.
In Germany, the order has around 1,220 members (750 men and 470 women) in 40 brother lodges as well as 270 women in the Rebekka lodges, 200 sisters in the sister associations and a mixed lodge in Berlin in which sisters and brothers work together in Switzerland approx. 1,900 (in 32 men's and 6 women's lodges), in the rest of Europe approx. 100,000 (including 41,000 in Sweden, 23,000 in Norway, 15,000 in Denmark, 8,000 in Finland, 3,500 in the Netherlands, around 3300 in Iceland), around 600,000 worldwide Members in around 11,000 boxes.
history
Early period and settlement in the US
In 1723 an order with the name "Ancient Order" was founded in England. This was probably a successor organization to previous associations. From this order different, independent Odd Fellow orders emerged towards the end of the 18th century. To combine these, was in 1814 a large corporation with the name "The Manchester Unity of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows" , IOOF constituted. In the course of the 19th century, this mainly developed into a well-organized insurance institute. On April 26, 1819 , Thomas Wildey , who immigrated to the United States from England and who was long-time chief master of the London lodges, founded the Washington Lodge No. 1 in Baltimore . As a result of his activity, further lodges were subsequently founded, and only two years later these could be combined in one grand lodge. Thomas Wildey and other active brothers gave the lodges a deeper spiritual content and improved the ritual, which led to a new custom. In 1841 the American grand lodge broke away from Manchester Unity and formed an independent grand lodge. In the year of Thomas Wildey's death, 1861, it had around 400,000 members.
Development in Europe
In 1869 it was decided to expand the order in Europe. In 1870 the first lodge was founded in Germany, 1871 in Switzerland, 1877 in the Netherlands, 1878 in Denmark, 1884 in Sweden, 1887 in France, 1896 in Iceland, 1898 in Norway, 1911 in Belgium. Attempts to found lodges in other European countries also failed or the lodges founded there closed again. Only the Finnish lodges were able to found their own grand lodge. In 1993 the foundations were laid for the establishment of Odd Fellow lodges in the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The Grand Lodge of the German Odd Fellows received a charter in 1872, the Swiss one in 1874.
German-speaking odd fellows
The first German lodge is the " Württemberg-Loge Nr.1 " in Stuttgart , founded on December 1st, 1870 . The youngest Odd Fellow Lodge in Germany was founded on October 18, 2003 under the name "Fresenia Loge zu Jever" in Jever / Lower Saxony by seven brothers and currently has 29 members with an average age of 52 years.
On November 9th, 2013 the youngest women’s lodge of the Odd Fellows, the Rebekka "Seewiefken-Lodge in Jever", was founded by 10 women.
In what is now Austria, the first lodge, the “Peace Lodge in Vienna ”, was founded on June 4, 1922 .
The German and Austrian lodges were banned during the Nazi era (on April 2, 1933, the German grand lodge declared itself dissolved in a special meeting in Berlin).
Current developments and problems
In more liberal countries and cultures, both men and women are accepted into lodges today. In the more conservative, the strict separation into men's and women's boxes - the "Rebekka boxes" - is retained. In Switzerland, for example, there are no mixed lodges, the term "conservative" in this context is not entirely correct.
A similar attitude applies to the principle of belief - in the past a “brother” / a “sister” had to believe in a “higher force”, which the conservative lodges still follow today. The more liberal also accept atheists.
In German lodges today it is expected that a member of the order believes in "a higher being, as the creator and sustainer of the universe". This can be interpreted quite broadly.
The Odd Fellow Order and its lodges suffer today, especially in Central Europe, from aging and membership decline.
literature
- Georg Schuster: Secret societies, connections and orders , 1905. Reprint: Komet-Verlag, Cologne, March 2003, ISBN 3-89836-326-0
- Lennhoff, Eugen, Oskar Posner a. Dieter A. Binder: International Freemasons Lexicon , Munich, Herbig, 2006, ISBN 978-3-7766-2478-6
- Müller, Stephanie (2008): Visit the Sick, Relieve the Distressed, Bury the Dead and Educate the Orphan: The Independent Order of Odd Fellows. A scientific work in the field of cultural studies. WVT, ISBN 978-3-86821-093-4
