Sofia, February 21, 2020
His Holiness Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria. Photo: 3.bp.blogspot.com
The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church issued a statement today on the official Bulgarian Patriarchate website, announcing that neither His Holiness Patriarch Neofit nor any other hierarchs will attend the upcoming fraternal gathering in Amman, Jordan.
Unlike the other Local Churches that had already declined to participate, the Bulgarian Synod does not indicate the reason for its decision.
The statement reads:
In connection with the letters received from His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, in which he sent an invitation to participate in the fraternal gathering of the primates of the Local Orthodox Churches and their delegations in Amman, Jordan, the Holy Synod of the BOC-BP informs that it will refrain from participating in the aforementioned meeting, and, accordingly, will not send its representatives to Amman, the capital of Jordan. The Holy Synod expresses its personal fraternal love for His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem and its deep reverence for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the thousands-of-years-old guardian of the lifegiving Tomb of the Lord.
Тhus far, 6 Churches have publicly announced that they are attending, whether via their primate or other representative hierarchs: Jerusalem, Moscow, Serbia, Romania, Poland, and the Czech-Slovak Church, and 7 have publicly announced that they are not attending: Constantinople, Alexandria, Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Georgia, and Bulgaria.
The Antiochian Church has made no public announcement on the matter, and the Orthodox Church in America, whose autocephaly is not universally recognized, was not invited.
