Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to Meet Bulgaria's Neofit I on Sofia Visit

Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the Orthodox Church's Ecumenical Patriarch, is to arrive in Bulgaria on November 7, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has announced.

Bartholomew I will stay in the country until November 10.

Alongside a meeting with Bulgarian Patriarch Neofit I, a private conversation with President Rosen Plevneliev has also been scheduled. According to a message by the Holy Synod, the church's executive body, the options for a meeting between Batholomew and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov are also being studied.

On the last day of his visit, the Bulgarian Academy of Science is to award him a Honoris Causa degree.

Even though Orthodox Churches are considered to be "autocephalous", run by their respective national heads, without being centered around a leader such as the one Catholics have in the face of the Pope, the Ecumenical Patriarch is said to be the "first among equals", enjoying special moral authority.

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