Istanbul, December 29, 2025
Photo: bta.bg
During his recent visit to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, His Holiness Patriarch Daniil of Bulgaria concelebrated with Patriarch Bartholomew in a Liturgy in which the schismatic Epiphany Dumenko was commemorated.
Pat. Daniil, accompanied by several Bulgarian hierarchs, arrived in Istanbul in the afternoon after celebrating the Divine Liturgy for the feast of the Nativity in Sofia. A doxology was served at St. George Cathedral to welcome the Bulgarian primate.
During a reception, according to an earlier decision of the Bulgarian Holy Synod, Pat. Daniil awarded Pat. Bartholomew the highest ecclesiastical order of the Bulgarian Church—the Order of St. John of Rila, first degree, for his role in overcoming the internal Bulgarian schism of the 1990s.
The next day, the primates and hierarchs from both Churches concelebrated at the Phanar.
As Pat. Daniil stated in an interview before his visit, there were no hierarchs of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” present, since the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is not in communion with them, and Pat. Daniil in particular takes a strong Orthodox stance on the matter.
Nevertheless, by concelebrating with Pat. Bartholomew, he participated in a Liturgy in which the graceless Epiphany Dumenko, the head of the schismatic OCU, was commemorated, which can be heard at 1:48:10 in the video below:
The next day, Pat. Daniil celebrated Liturgy at the Bulgarian Church of St. Stephen in Istanbul.
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