"Concerning the attitude of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rumania towards my co-religionists in distress during the period of Nazi oppression, I must tell you that we did not receive any help or comfort from this Church in our terrible suffering, not even a token of human compassion. In 1942, in order to request his intervention on our behalf, I intended to go to the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Rumanian Church, Mgr. Balan, whose residence was in Sibiu, where also was the Centre of the Evangelical Church. I was warned, however, that the members of this Church living in Sibiu were capable of betraying me to the Gestapo - with which they maintained direct relations - in order to prevent me from approaching Mgr. Balan." [412] The letter from Bishop Mueller seems to suggest that there existed a kind of "Confessing Church" in Rumania. If this name is correct for the group mentioned by him, it should be added that the existence of this "Confessing Church in Rumania" was not, contrary to what can be said about the Confessing Church in Germany, a very manifest phenomenon. Apparently its existence was not manifest to Dr. Safran. Bishop Staedel "tried to follow the policy of the German Christians". He certainly matched them in anti-Semitic heresies. 29 BULGARIA a. The Preliminary Phase Bulgaria was part ally, part satellite of Germany. In September, 1940, it acquired southern Dobrudja from Roumania. In March, 1941, the German army was admitted to Bulgaria. The Germans took Macedonia from Yugoslavia, Thrace from Greece, and handed them over to Bulgaria. <180> The number of Jews in Bulgaria at the end of 1939 amounted to 50,000. Approximately 15,000 more were added to the Bulgarian power sphere in the newly won territories. [413] The "Law for the Protection of the Nation'; containing provisions for the definition, expropriation and concentration of the Jews, was adopted by a majority of the Parliament at the end of December 1, 1940, and promulgated on January 21, 1941. In August, 1942, wearing the yellow star was made compulsory for the entire Jewish population. At the same time Belev was appointed as Bulgarian Commissioner for Jewish Affairs. On November 15, 1940, the "Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Church" sent a letter of Protest to the Prime Minister (Filov), with a copy to the Speaker of the Parliament. The letter was signed by the Deputy Chairman of the Holy Synod, Metropolitan Neophyte. It read as follows: