Patr. Bartholomew Called for Synaxis of Four Ancient Apostolic Thrones

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew invited the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem to a brotherly Synaxis in Constantinople on November 30, the patronal feast of the Church of Constantinople. The proposal was announced during Bartholomew’s September 4 address to the 27th International Congress of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches in Budapest.

In his address, Patr. Bartholomew emphasized the historical role of the five ancient patriarchal sees and discussed the Orthodox understanding of the Bishop of Rome’s position during the first Christian millennium. He cited the formulation associated with Patr. Athenagoras that the Bishop of Rome was “the one presiding in love,” describing Roman primacy as a service exercised within and not above the communion of sister Churches.

Patr. Bartholomew also discussed the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s support for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. He recalled the restoration of the title “Patriarch of the West” among the titles of the Bishop of Rome in the 2024 Annuario Pontificio, describing the development as “a small but far from insignificant step” and expressing hope that it would encourage continued theological dialogue. He also linked the ancient Pentarchy to his vision for the future of the Christian world.

The Ecumenical Patriarch further described the newly inaugurated “Fanarion” Orthodox Christian Dialogue Centre in Budapest as a venue for inter-Orthodox, inter-Christian, and interfaith encounters. He said the center was intended to contribute to what he called “juridical ecumenism” and to support theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. His remarks on the Pentarchy and the responsibilities of the Eastern Patriarchates provided the context for his invitation to the three Eastern Patriarchs.

Precisely because we attach such importance to this ancient institution and to the pastoral responsibility which it entails, our Modesty, in the continuing absence of full communion with the Elder Rome, recently addressed a Letter to our beloved brothers, the Patriarchs of the other three ancient Thrones of the East — Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — inviting them to a brotherly Synaxis on the occasion of the Patronal feast of the Church of Constantinople, on November 30th, so that together, as the four remaining ancient Apostolic Thrones bound by the historical and theological debt bequeathed to us by the Holy Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils, we might conciliarly discern great and pressing challenges confronting the Christ-named people of God in our rapidly changing world.

In that Letter, we had occasion to observe that our Holy Orthodox Church, like a spiritual vessel navigating under divine protection the waves of history through the centuries, is borne up by these time-honored and elder Patriarchates of the East, which stand as unshaken pillars and unbroken foundations of the Apostolic Tradition, and which, together with the Church of Elder Rome, constituted in the first millennium the five-stringed lyre of the universal Church, actively participating in the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils and “rightly dividing the word of truth.” It is with no small sorrow that we acknowledge how, deprived for now a full millennium of the fellow-journeying of the Church of Rome — on account of the rupture of communion, which, would that it had never occurred, tore asunder the seamless tunic of the Lord — we, the remaining ancient Thrones of the East, bear a correspondingly intensified pastoral responsibility: to affirm the historical continuity of the Apostolic Faith, and to bear unwavering witness to Orthodoxy.

Yet we wish equally to affirm, before this distinguished assembly of canonists and theologians, that this sorrow is inseparable from hope. We await, by grace and help from on high, the restoration of full communion with the Church of Rome within the one Body of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, so that the Pentarchy may once again be whole, and the “five-stringed lyre” of the universal Church may again resound in the fullness of its ancient harmony.

Previously, the UOJ reported that a former Byzantine Catholic priest was received into the Orthodox priesthood.