Although Belgian’s King Leopold’s connection to Freemasonry was distant at best –he had been accepted “by proxy” under the auspices of a Swiss lodge but most likely he had never set a foot in a Masonic temple– he was nevertheless hailed as a brother by Belgian Freemasons. Leopold accepted to become the protector of the order when the young country had its own Grand Orient organized in 1832-1833. But quickly Leopold developed hostility towards the Belgian lodges’ liberal stance and kept that negative opinion until his death in December 1865. In February 1866 the Grand Orient organized a widely attended mourning lodge for the departed monarch. The mourning lodge explicitly echoed the then still largely proclaimed Masonic spiritualist doctrine of theimmortality of the soul. The dead Mason-king was symbolically integrated into the pantheon of national heroes, was re-invented with mythical qualities and was instrumentalized as an icon to prove how much Freemasons were good patriots. The explicit expression of a spiritualist worldview was meant to show that Masons were no vile atheists either. Catholic opinion reacted vehemently against this recuperation of the monarch, but the 1866 ritual also led to a first but ever so meaningful protest by more radical Freemasons who opposed this imposed spiritualist doctrine. These polemics anticipated the progressive secularization of Belgian Masonic rituals in the 1870s. ; Si el lazo del rey Leopoldo I de Bélgica con la masonería fue en el mejor de los casos lejano –fue aceptado por « comunicación » bajo los auspicios de una logia suiza aunque muy probablemente no haya puesto nunca un pie en una logia- no impidió que fuera saludado como hermano por los masones belgas. Leopoldo aceptó ser protector de la orden cuando un nuevo gran oriente se estableció en el joven país en 1832-1833. No obstante, pronto Leopoldo desarrolló una hostilidad contra la postura liberal de las logias belgas, actitud que mantuvo hasta su muerte en diciembre de 1865. En febrero de 1866, el Gran Oriente ...