Démétrius Platon Sémélas naquit au mois de mai 1883 à Silivri, petite ville sur la mer de Marmara à l’ouest d’Istanbul. Il était de religion grecque orthodoxe et avait fait ses études au Collège Français d’Istanbul. Il obtint son bachot à l’école commerciale grecque. Après avoir terminé ses études secondaires, il vint au Caire et là, il fut employé de commerce.
BACKGROUND
Marie Routchine - Dupré
She who is called the “Great Lady of the Heavens” was born in Odessa on November 25, 1883. Her parents, fleeing Russia from the tsars, fled to Paris a few years later, and it was there that Marie spent her childhood where daily she watched the spectacle of human suffering of the working-class people of Paris.
The great social problems of that time led her to become aware at an early age of her mission, and thanks to her visionary ideas, to engage in an impersonal life for the benefit of humanity.
With her husband Eugene Dupré, she made several trips to Egypt where she came into contact with the leaders and chiefs of philosophical schools in the East. It was during this period that she addressed higher philosophical problems.
In 1910, by a providential destiny, our Master met Marie and initiated her in Egypt; Marie would become the co-founder of our Order and was named Dea.
This enlightened spirit, illuminated by the Word of her Master, conceived a remarkable work where Wisdom could become truly active, accessible to all and beneficial to everyone. Thus she endowed our Order with a teaching based on Wisdom and Love.
In Cairo, on the day of epiphany 1915, in the presence of Deon, Dea established the Order of the Lily and the Eagle and placed at the head of each great jurisdiction one of the three disciples she had initiated: Antoine Hadji-Apostolou, Nicolas Condaros, Georges Agathos, as well as her husband Eugene Dupré.
Marie Routchine's initiatic name, in accordance with the Eonian Tradition, is Déa.
Demetrius Plato Semelas
Our Master was born on May 13, 1884 in Silivri, a small town on the Sea of Marmara west of Istanbul. He was of the Greek Orthodox religion and was educated at the French College in Istanbul. After graduating from high school, he went to Cairo to work.
Life began for him as for everyone, and his life would have been like all others if an inner call had not revealed to him the integral mission of creating a higher work of regeneration. This call came when he lived in Cairo and it directed him to go to Athens where he attended the School of Medicine.
Upon his arrival, he went through some extremely hard trials, but despite this he managed to continue his studies while also working to earn a living. For two years he remained in Athens, where he was already laying the foundation for what was to be the Order's third purpose, the social aspect of the Work.
Shortly before his departure for Egypt in 1909 he received the initiatic transmission reserved for him. It was given to him by the last initiate of the School of Attica, who bore the title of Megas Atticos, the Great One of Attica, the last Master of the Orient of the Rose-Cross
Inspired and guided in his mission by actual physical proof, he received a providential indication of the existence of an initiatic Order with which he could enter into a relationship of close and amicable association. It was the Martinist Order that he was led to, headed by Papus, who himself received the transmission through the branch of a direct disciple of St. Martin, and who was spreading this tradition for the greater good of men.
After meeting Marie Routchine and her husband Eugene Dupré, the contact was made with Papus who agreed to entrust a charter to Mr. Sémélas to form a lodge in Cairo: the Martinist Lodge Temple of the Essenes No. III. It was in this formation that Deon’s first Higher Teachings were transmitted, the aim being to enlighten the disciples using the Great Book of Nature, to make them know of its Laws which they could use in the future.
In 1915, Deon and Papus formed a plan to unite the Order of the Lily and the Eagle with the Martinist Order. But their project did not come to fruition because Papus died a few weeks later of tuberculosis contracted by caring for the sick in the hospital that he ran.
Deon's work was multiple, but above all he assisted in the founding of the Order of the Lily and The Eagle. Then, after the Dea’s death, fulfilling and respecting the previous promise he had made to her, he tirelessly led our Order until his death on August 6, 1924.
His private secretary Madeleine Weill told us that Deon’s patience and kindness were endless, and that no one could speak of a sick person without his helping them.
The initiatic name of Demetrius Semelas, in accordance with the Eonian Tradition, is Deon.
SUCCESSORS
Eugene Dupré (directed the Order from 1924 to 1945)
Husband of Marie Routchine, who was the founder of the Order of the Lily and The Eagle, Dupré loved his Master deeply, and noted his beneficial words in small notebooks that are still used for reference. With an extraordinary erudition and an excellent intelligence entirely oriented towards spiritual matters, he was given the leadership of the Order. He became the Sovereign Grand Commander in 1924, in accordance with the last wishes of D. P. Sémélas.
Eugene Dupré, who experienced this great spiritual adventure from the beginning by participating in all the important events of its foundation, then dedicated his life to organizing and developing the Order by emphasizing the social aspects of the work willed by its Master Founders.
Georges Agathos (directed the Order from 1945 to 1958)
In accordance with the will of D. P. Semelas, who had planned for George Agathos to succeed Eugene Dupré by taking the leadership of the Order in the event of Dupré’s death, Agathos became the third Sovereign Grand Commander of the Order when Dupre died in 1945.
G. Agathos, who lived in Cairo, contributed wholly to the translation into Greek of all the teachings originally given in French. He then worked to promote its practical application. After the war, he undertook a restructuring of the Order, adapting it to the changes of that time. A tireless worker, he enriched the teachings of the founders with enlightened comments on personality. He died in 1958 after appointing Madeleine Weill, a high dignitary of the Order in France, as Supreme Grand Maitresse and co-director of the Order, and Basile Gouletas as his successor.
Madeleine Weill (directed from 1958 to1999)
Madeleine Weill was the last living witness, up to our time,of the beginnings of the Order. She had become the private secretary to Master Deon in April 1919, before she was appointed Initiator General of the Order in May 1920. It was in this capacity that she accompanied the Master during all her sojourns in Cairo, actively participating in the establishment of the various new formations of the Order and in the writing of the teachings, such as the Treatise of Astrosophy, which the Master dictated to her without any notes and without ever consulting a book.
Together with her husband, Grand Commander Robert Weill, the two of them dedicated their lives to the Master and to the Order so that the work could continue.