Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has invited the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem to a fraternal meeting on November 30, the feast day of the Church of Constantinople.

Bartholomew announced the initiative in his address to the 27th International Congress of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches in Budapest, Orthodox Times reports.

The Ecumenical Patriarch linked the proposed Synaxis to the enduring significance of the ancient institution of the Pentarchy and to the pastoral responsibility of the Eastern patriarchates in the absence of full communion with the Church of Rome.

The patriarch said he attaches great importance to this ancient institution and the pastoral responsibility associated with it, which is why he invited the three Eastern patriarchs to the Synaxis.

The invitation was sent in a recent letter in which the Ecumenical Patriarch proposed that the heads of the surviving ancient apostolic sees gather to discuss the serious challenges facing the Church and the faithful.

In the same address, Bartholomew again expressed hope for the “restoration of full communion with the Church of Rome,” so that “the Pentarchy may once again become whole” and the “five-stringed lyre” of the universal Church may once again sound “in all the fullness of its ancient harmony.”