Σ.˙. St.˙. MEMBER No 76
East: Athens
Brief background
THE S.˙. St.˙. Melis was originally founded in East Smyrna on 23/7/1867 under the auspices of the Grand Orient of France. Selected members of the Smyrna society, Greeks and French, were its members.
The lodge worked normally until 1892 when Sultan Abdul Hamit put it in a new building. The reason for this was the contribution of the lodge through its members for the rights of Hellenism and Democracy. In 1908, with the change of situation in Turkey and the implementation of the new Constitution of the Young Turks, the operation of lodges in Turkey began again.
In 1912, brother Simitopoulos, on the basis of the founding documents of the Lodge, awakened its members, prominent members of Smyrna, among whom was also the Ethnomartyr Metropolitan of Smyrna, today’s Saint of the Orthodox Greek Church, Chrysostomos Kalafatis.
In 1919 members of the Mellis Lodge founded two new lodges, the Homer Lodge under the auspices of the Grand Anandole of France and the Ionia Lodge No. 54 under the Grand Anatoli of Greece.
In 1922, due to the destruction of Smyrna by the Turks, the Meli Lodge was forced to move to Athens. For a certain period of time, it settled in Piraeus, meeting in the building of the Miaoulis Lodge. But because under the laws of international Masonic legality it was impossible for it to work as a French Lodge, the Grand Orient of Greece established the Homer lodge no. 61 in 1923 by members of the Meli Lodge. In 1925, the Venerable Elias Simitopoulos of the Lodge, disagreeing with the Grand Lodge. An.˙. of Greece on issues concerning the refugee issue, he left the Grand Anatoli and reawakened the Meli Lodge under the Grand Anatoli of France. At the end of 1927, after consultations between the Grand Orient of France and Greece, it was decided to reintegrate the Lodge into the Grand Orient of Greece. Thus in 1928 the Mellis Lodge was adopted in the Greater East of Greece and continued its work.
The contribution of the members of the Lodge is great, during her life in Turkey she worked for the unification of Macedonia, Crete, Thessaly with the motherland Greece. When in 1922 the members of the refugees settled in Greece, they worked for the restoration of the refugees in their new homelands.
In 1935, it founded the MELIS reformatory schools under the later Grand Master brother Alexandros Tzazopoulos, over 17 schools maintained at their own expense. In 1957 he participated in the foundation of the Hellenic Cancer Society.
Its members founded many lodges: Ionia, Homer in Smyrna, Oμηρος, Adelphosis, Elefyssis, Pleiades, Archimedes, Sp. Nagos, Parthenon, Osiris, Php. in Athens.