Marcel Claude — Memphis Misraim — Ordo Militiae Crucis Templi

In H.J. Metzger's O.T.O.–newsletter EOL for 1958, Marcel Claude published an invitation to Liège, for a "Convention of all Egyptian Masonic Rites" — i.e. the Memphis–Misraim Rite. ['EOL' No. 49, 1958, p. 8.]

Claude was already a master of the irregular "Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cité Sainte" (a variety of "super–Freemasonry") and as he was the only candidate he got elected as Grand Hierophant of the MM during the Convent held at the lodge "Sphynx" in Liège, October 4 and 5, 1958.

Marcel Claude Rites of Memphis and Misraim

'Ex Oriente Lux. Mitteilungsblatt' No. 49
Stein/Appenzell, July 1958

But in 1962 he had to resign from this post, as he had been unable to prove his legitimacy.

Claude proposed Metzger as a member of a German Order of Templars, the Ordo Militiae Crucis Templi (OMCT). Thus Metzger joined the OMCT on St. Martin's day 1962. Prominent members found this incomprehensible, and demonstrated this by resigning. (All details in 'Der O.T.O. Phänomen RELOAD'.)

Claude continued wearing the white coat and the plaque of the OMCT, e.g. during the Chapter which took place in Goslar (Harz, R.F.A.), from 28 to 30 June 1963, under the presidency of Admiral Count Felix von Lückner.

Paul Rüdiger Audehm met Monsieur Claude at Stein/Appenzell in 1964: "On the Sunday evening we had plenty of opportunity to get our first impressions of him. A healthy old fellow of about sixty; quite tall and vigorous, with grey hair, he had a big moustache and a receding chin hidden by a pointed beard. He was wearing his Templar robes (a white cloak with an eight–armed red Templar cross). We never saw him taking anything but a really wholehearted part in the rites there. They [Metzger and Claude] greeted each other respectfully as old friends, while to us, [Audehm and Walter Englert] he seemed very kind and good–humoured." [Paul Rüdiger Audehm, letter of 12.8.88.]

P. R. Audehm and W. Englert were members of the Fraternitas Saturni, Metzger's O.T.O. and founder of a rivalling Order of the Illuminati.

A bit more about the context. All meticulous details in 'Der O.T.O. Phänomen RELOAD'. Documents concerning the relationship between H.J. Metzger and the OMCT in 'Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.'.