Pat Daniel awards Pat Bartholomew with order for overcoming schism in BOC

Order presentation at the Phanar. Photo: Press Service of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

On December 25, 2025, Bulgarian Patriarch Daniel, on behalf of the Holy Synod, awarded Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with the highest church order of the Bulgarian Church – the Order of St. John of Rila, First Class – for his assistance in overcoming the schism of the 1990s.

The award ceremony took place at the residence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the Phanar on the day after the Nativity of Christ, during the official visit of the delegation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

The Bulgarian Primate recalled the key role played by Patriarch Bartholomew in organizing the Pan-Orthodox Council in Sofia in 1998, which was convened at the initiative of the Bulgarian Patriarchate.

“The Church is conciliar by her very nature. She resolves all problems in a conciliar way. And you once again testified to this conviction of yours through the convocation of this Council,” Patriarch Daniel noted.

He emphasized that it was precisely through the conciliar decisions of 1998 that the grievous schism in the Bulgarian Church, which had arisen in the early 1990s, was overcome.

In his response, Patriarch Bartholomew thanked him for the high award and recalled the events of that time: “For me, it was my duty then to come at that crisis moment for the Bulgarian Church and help her – and to do so at the invitation and request of the ever-memorable Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim.”

Patriarch Bartholomew did not mention why similar efforts were not applied to overcoming the Ukrainian schism.

He gratefully commemorated all the primates of the Churches who took part in the 1998 Council, among them Moscow Patriarch Alexy II and Archbishop Christodoulos.

The visit of the Bulgarian delegation took place on the day after the Nativity of Christ, which, according to Patriarch Bartholomew, has “special symbolic significance, as it lays a new beginning in the relations between the Mother Church and her daughter, Bulgaria.”

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the Primate of the Bulgarian Church had arrived in Istanbul.

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