Peter Deunov

Peter Deunov, usually spelled Peter Dunov in English sources and known by his spiritual name Beinsa Douno, lived from 1864 to 1944 and was a Bulgarian philosopher and spiritual teacher who developed a form of Esoteric Christianity known as the Universal White Brotherhood. He was born near Varna to a father who had been the first Bulgarian teacher in the region before becoming a priest, worked for a year as a primary school teacher, and studied theology at Drew Theological Seminary and Boston University before returning to Bulgaria in 1895. In 1896 he published Science and Education, and he was engaged in educational and social activities. From 1900 he convened annual assemblies, and in 1922 he opened an esoteric school in Sofia called the School of the Universal White Brotherhood. He is widely known in Bulgaria, where the public voted him second in the Great Bulgarians television programme.