Bulgaria.

There are traces of Freemasonry in Bulgaria as early as 1820-23, for mention is made of it in a rare book entitled, The Village of Kicheneff during the life of Alexander Serguevitch Pauchkine 1820-1823, reprinted in 1899 by the Scientific Commission of Archives of Bessarabia. According to that source, Dr. Chouler, a native of Alsace, was the founder of the lodge. It is also said that, at a Congress of Yugoslavian Masons at Belgrade in 1925, a newspaper stated that a lodge formed in Serbia toward the close of the 18th century had held relations with lodges in Roumania and Bulgaria. Reliable history begins, however, with the formation of Lodge Star of the Balkans No. 13 in Rasgrad by the Grand Orient of Portugal, warrant granted March 20, 1879, lodge constituted March 9, 1880. That lodge dissolved March 12, 1882 for p*litical reasons, but in June, 1883, a second lodge was formed under the name, Bratstvo Fraternity No. 162 in Sofia, warranted by the Grand Orient Lusitania and Supreme Council of Portugal, which lodge is said to have been composed of government officials and other prominent men. In January, 1914, ten Freemasons organized Lodge Zaria, sponsored by lodges at Lyons, France, which was constituted April 28, 1914 as Zaria Lodge No. 468 by the Grand Lodge of France. In order to form a Grand Lodge, that lodge amicably split into Zaria Lodge No. 1 and Svetlina Lodge No. 2, the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Bulgaria being formed Nov. 27, 1917, with General Midileff as Grand Master. He retained that position as late as 1936.

In The New Age for November, 1937, p. 685, Grand Commander John Cowles of the Southern Masonic Jurisdiction related that ”On the night of December 17th, [1936] an event of much import occurred--the establishment of a Sovereign Council 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Bulgaria with See at Sofia. Along about the beginning of the [First] World W*r, the Grand Lodge of France chartered some lodges in Bulgaria, which prospered even in those times, so that in two or three years these lodges organized themselves into the Grand Lodge of Bulgaria. Later on, Grand Commander Raymond of France established a body or Areopagus of the 30th Degree at Sofia. On the date just mentioned he elevated and coronetted eleven of these brothers into the 33rd Degree and then issued them a patent authorizing them to work and do all necessary to carry on the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Gen. Peter Midileff was elected Grand Commander and Stojan Koledaroff was elected Grand Secretary General.” Grand Commander Cowles was accompanied on that trip by Grand Commander Pangal of the Supreme Council of Roumania and Dr. Wm. Moseley Brown of Elon College, North Carolina.

All Masonic bodies in Bulgaria were swept away by the incorporation of that country into the satellite zone of C*mmunist Russia.