order to strengthen their numbers . The Council of the Order of the GODF approved the delegation on May 5 . When Sincholle and Bouley arrived in Saint Petersburg on May 8 , 1908 , Bebutov and Orlov-Davydov escorted them to Kresty prison , where the lawyer and journalist Manuil Margulies ( 1868 – 1939 ) was imprisoned . Margulies was a leader of the K-D and personal friend of Kovalevsky . He was later minister in the government of Northwest Russia , but at this point was in prison for press offences . Warned in advance of the visit , which he had cancelled the previous day out of fear of reprisals , he was received as a Mason ( or elevated to the Fellowcraft and Master degrees ) in a simplified ritual conducted by the four visitors , wearing their sashes or ribbons , and witnessed by the astonished guards . The undertaking is all the more astounding given that the Okhrana had been informed of their arrival by the secret agent Rachkovsky . The four Brethren then went to Maklakov ’ s apartment that afternoon for the ceremony to regularize The North Star . The ceremony was attended by Kovalevsky and his friends in the Orient , suggesting that the two factions had been reconciled by this point . Worshipful Master Orlov-Davydov yielded the first gavel to Bouley , who presided over the session , with Sincholle as First Warden , Bazhenov as Second Warden , Maklakov as Orator , and Bebutov as Secretary . The work consisted of the signing of the warrant by all the Brethren in attendance . Bazhenov , Maklakov , and Baron Maydell stayed after the ceremony in order to be elevated to the 18 th degree so
Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society
66 that a chapter could be opened for the purpose of elevating Margulies as soon as possible to the Rose Croix degree .
In April , the GODF sent a copy of its Constitution to Renaissance and the lodge was consecrated in its turn by Sincholle , Bouley , and Bazhenov on Friday , May 22 , 1908 . The Fellowcraft and Master degrees were conferred on the Apprentices by Bouley and Sincholle , assisted by Bazhenov and Orlov-Davydov . The first tracing board , dated May 24 , 1908 , contains twelve names : Worshipful Master Nikolay Bazhenov ; the writer Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko ( 1844 – 1936 ), who had emigrated to Prague and joined Mont Sinaï Lodge ( GLDF ) in 1905 ; Sergey Kotlyarevsky , a professor at Moscow University ; Evgeniy Kedrin ; Vasily Maklakov ; and seven Brethren who had previously been initiated into Renaissance in January or on February 17 , 1908 : Sergey Urusov ( First Warden ); Ivan Sakharov ( Second Warden ); Dr . Aleksandr Dvorzhak ; Alexander Sumbatov-Yuzhin ; Viktor Obninsky ; Onisim Goldovsky ( Secretary ); and Sergey Balavinsky . Eight lived in Moscow and three in Saint Petersburg . On May 12 or 24 , Urusov , Goldovsky , and Balavinsky received the Fellowcraft and Master degrees . Two other names appear in the first official correspondence addressed to the GODF : Evgeniy Anichkov , professor of literature and future Second Warden , and Daulcheino , Master and Secretary .
The two lodges sponsored by the GODF are not listed in the GODF ’ s Yearbook , and in 1909 they disappear from the records altogether , made dormant to escape police surveillance .