PATRIARCH PAVLE – A BELOVED SPIRITUAL LEADER

BIJELJINA, NOVEMBER 14 /SRNA/ - His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle died on November 15, 2009, at the age of 95.

Patriarch Pavle, whose secular name was Gojko Stojčević, was born on September 11, 1914, on the great Orthodox feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, in the village of Kućanci, near Donji Miholjac, in Slavonia.

He completed primary school in Kućanci, where, following the death of both his parents, his paternal aunt Senka took care of him and his brother Dušan.

He completed lower secondary school in Tuzla, upper secondary school and a six-year seminary in Sarajevo, and graduated from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade. He also completed the upper grades of the Sixth Belgrade Grammar School as an external student, in order to enrol simultaneously at the Faculty of Medicine, where he completed two years of study.

He was in Belgrade when the Second World War broke out. In the spring of 1942, his school friend, Hieromonk Jelisej, took him to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity on Mount Ovčar.

From 1944, he worked as a religious education teacher at a home for children displaced from Bosnia in Banja Koviljača.

For health reasons, having contracted tuberculosis, he left for the Vujan Monastery in the village of Prislonica, between Čačak and Gornji Milanovac, where he stayed until 1946 and recovered from the illness.

He took monastic vows in 1948 at the Monastery of the Annunciation in the Ovčar-Kablar Gorge and was given the name Pavle by Abbot Julijan Knežević. That same year, he was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon.

He was a member of the monastic brotherhood of Rača Monastery in the Podrinje region and also worked as an assistant teacher at the Seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prizren. He became a hieromonk in 1954 and was soon afterwards elevated to the rank of protosyncellus. In 1957, following two years of postgraduate studies in Athens, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.

He was elected Bishop of Raška and Prizren in May 1957 and spent 33 years in Kosovo and Metohija.

He was elected Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church on December 1, 1990, succeeding the seriously ill Patriarch German.

Patriarch Pavle was enthroned on December 2, 1990, at the Cathedral Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Belgrade. On that occasion, he said that his only program of work was the Gospel.

He served as Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church for 19 years. During his tenure, the Academy of the Serbian Orthodox Church for Arts and Conservation was established, religious education was reintroduced in public schools, and the Faculty of Orthodox Theology was returned to the University of Belgrade.

He visited numerous Orthodox Churches, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, and the Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Greek and Georgian Orthodox Churches, as well as Serbian dioceses and parishes in the United States, Canada, Australia, Hungary and Romania.

He was the recipient of the highest Church and state decorations and was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Orthodox Theology and St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. He spoke Greek, Russian, and German.

He was awarded the Order of Nemanja, First Class, the Order of the Karađorđe's Star, First Class, and Russia's Order of Honor in recognition of his importance during the difficult times endured by the Serbian people and the Serbian Orthodox Church /SOC/.

The Serbian Government appointed Patriarch Pavle honorary president of the Kosovo and Metohija Fund on January 13, 2005.

During his visit to Russia in January 2002, Patriarch Pavle received two prestigious awards – from the International Foundation for the Unity of Orthodox Christian Nations and the Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called.

He published two books, Questions and Answers for a Reader before His Elevation to the Rank of Reader, and Devič, the Monastery of St. Joanikije of Devič. A revised and expanded edition of the Srbljak was also published thanks to Patriarch Pavle's efforts.

Patriarch Pavle's personal library became part of the Serbian Patriarchate Library collection and has been designated a cultural asset. It is preserved in the quarters of the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel in Rakovica.

The messages of the late Patriarch Pavle, the best known of which is "Let Us Be Human", are still frequently quoted today.

"Man cannot choose the time and place of his birth, nor the circumstances and conditions in which he will live. That is beyond our control. But what is within our power and what is expected of us is to be human beings – always and everywhere. We should live in such a way that God recognizes us as human beings, that our ancestors recognize us, and that our contemporaries come to know us as such," Patriarch Pavle said.

Serbian Patriarch Pavle died on November 15, 2009, at the age of 95 at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade. In accordance with his own wishes, he was buried at Rakovica Monastery in Belgrade.

More than half a million people attended his funeral.

Thousands of Orthodox believers visit the grave of the late Patriarch Pavle every year.