On Sunday, January 7, 2018, His All-Holiness received His Beatitude Patriarch Neophyte of Bulgaria together with the members of his entourage — various metropolitans and clergy of the Church of Bulgaria — at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, during His Beatitude’s visit for the reopening of the newly renovated Church of St. Stephen in the Phanar District of Istanbul. This was the first visit of Patriarch Neophyte to the Ecumenical Patriarchate since the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, which the Church of Bulgaria did not attend.