On the evening of the 19th of November, the day of the funeral of Patriarch Pavle, memorial service was served in the New Gracanica Monastery as well as in a number of other churches of our diocese. Faithful people came to pray for the blessed repose of our Patriarch and to bid farewell to this holy man in a prayerful manner.

We thank our guests from other Orthodox Churches in the area for coming to join us in prayer and also for the expressed condolences of those who were not able to attend.

Below is the biography of His Holiness Patriach Pavle. Memory eternal!

Patriarch Pavle (Gojko Stojcevic in the world) was born on Sept. 11 1914, in the Slavonian village of Kucanici by the town of Donji Miholjac(Now in Northeast Croatia). He was orphaned early in life: his father contracted tuberculosis while working in America and returned home to die and his mother remarried a year later; she also died very quickly. Thus, when he was three years old, little Gojko’s paternal aunt became his and his older brother’s guardian.

According to Patriarch Pavle, as a child he had been very weak. Once he was so ill, the family believing him to be dead lit a candle over him as over a deceased.

His first four years of elementary school were completed in Tuzla and the other four in Belgrade. Following this he attended High School Seminary (Bogoslovija) in Sarajeveo and then the Theological Faculty in Belgrade. During World War II, he worked temporarily in Banja Koviljaca as a Catechesis Teacher at a school for displaced children from Bosnia.

In August of 1944 Gojko contracted tuberculosis after jumping into the Drina River to save a child from drowning; the doctors gave him only three months to live. These three months he spent at the Vujan Monastery, where the monks accepted him into the brotherhood. Fighting this vicious disease with prayer, he recovered. In gratitude to God for granting him health, Gojko hand-carved out a cross, which is still kept in the monastery. After a period of being a novice, he was tonsured a monk in the Annunciation monastery in 1948 and received the name Pavle (Paul).

During the communists’ harsh persecution against the Church, Monk Pavle lived in the Raca Monastery (Western Serbia). From 1949 to 1955, he was a part of the Raca Monastery Brotherhood. He spent the 1950/51 school year as a substitute teacher in the Prizren Seminary (Bogoslovija) of St. Cyril and Methodius. He was elevated to the rank of Hieromonk in 1954, then Protosyngel in the same year, and then Archimandrite in 1957. From 1955 to 1957 he was working on his post-graduate studies in the Theological Faculty in Athens. He was chosen to be bishop of the Rasko and Prizren Diocese on May 29, 1957, and was consecrated on September 21st 1957 in Belgrade, in the main Cathedral. The Episcopal consecration was served by the Serbian Patriach Vikentije. He was enthroned as the Bishop of Raska and Prizen on October 13th, 1957 in the Prizren Cathedral.

The duration of his post-graduate studies in Athens was from 1955 to 1957, during which he was chosen to be bishop of the Rasko and Prizen Diocese. He spent 34 years as Bishop in Kosovo and Metohia. This was a very difficult time for Serbs and the Serbian Church. Bishop Pavle notified Church institutions and civil authorities about the attacks committed by Albanians on Church property, monks and the Serbian people who were gradually being forced out. With Christian humility and patience he endured insults and physical attacks. About this time, Patriarch Pavle wrote: “I received warnings to be careful about my regular reports to the Holy Synod because they are making their way into the hands of the civil authorities, but it was all too clear that Kosovo and Metohia is somewhere, that other forces predetermined it not to be Serbian”.

As bishop, he built new churches in the Rasko and Prizren Diocese, renovated old and ruinous churches, ordained and tonsured new priests and monks. He supervised the Prizen Seminary, where he taught church singing and Church Slavonic. He traveled frequently and visited and served in all places of his diocese. Due to the Serbian exodus after 1999 , the Prizren Seminary of St. Cyril and Methodius has been temporarily moved to Nis, and the Cathedra of the Rasko and Prizen Diocese from Pec to the Gracanica Monastery (located near Pristina in Kosovo, Serbia).

As Bishop of Rasko and Prizen, he testified in the United Nations about the suffering of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohia.

The Theological Faculty of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade awarded Patriarch Pavle the title of honorary Doctor of Theology due to his works and merits in the field of Theology in 1988.

He published a monograph about the Devich Monastery, Devich, the monastery of St. Joanikije of Devic (1989, 2nd edition 1997). He published studies in liturgics in the form of questions and answers in the Glasnik Srpske Pravoslavne Crkve (The Voice of the Serbian Orthodox Church), which was later organized into the three-volume work Da Nam Budu Jasnija Neka Pitanje Nase Vere, I, II, III (To Better Understand Some Questions of Our Faith) (1998). He edited the supplemental edition of the Srbljak (Menaion of Serbian Saints) which the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church published in 1986. He also edited M. Skabalanovich’s Khristianskie Prazdniki (Christian Feastdays). He is the author of Trebnik (The Book of Needs), Molitvenik (Prayer Book), Dopolnitelni Trebnik (Supplemental Book of Needs), Veliki Tipikon (The Great Typicon) and other service books published by the Synod. Pitanje i Odgovor Ctecu pred Preoizvodstvom (Questions and Answers to a Reader before Tonsure) was published in 1988 and Molitve i Molbe (Prayers and Supplications) in 1990. It is Due to Patriarch Pavle that 300 copies of the the Ochtoechos were reprinted and circulated in the Curch.

Patriach Pavle was, for many years, the Head of the Commission of the Holy Bishops’ Synod for the translation of the New Testament into Serbian, which was the first translation and was officially approved by the Church. It was then published in 1984 and the corrected edition of this translation was published in 199o. He was also the Head of the Liturgical Commission before the Holy Bishops’ Synod, which prepared and printed the Sluzebnik (Service Book) in Serbian.

The Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church held a meeting on December 1st 1990 in the Patriarchate in Belgrade and chose Bishop Pavle of Raska and Prizren to be the 44th Patriarch. He was enthroned in the Belgrade Cathedral of Archangel Michael on December 2nd 1990. Then was enthroned, on May 22, 1994, on the ancient cathedra of Serbian Patriarchs in Pec, Kosovo.

During his time as Patriarch, dioceses were created and renewed. The Seminary (Bogoslovije) in Cetinje, Montenegro was reopened in 1992. In 1994, the Spiritual Academy of St. Vasilije of Ostrog in Srbinja(Focha) was opened and the Seminary (Bogoslovija) in Kragujevac in 1997, under the umbrella of St. Sava’s Seminary in Belgrade. The Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church was created. In 1993, he founded the Academy for Art and Preservation, with several departments (iconography, frescoes, conservation). In the following years Catechesis is reinstated in schools (2002) as well as the Theological Faculty as a branch of the Belgrade University, from which it was expelled by the Communist regime in 1952.

Patriarch Pavle had received many honors. In January of 2000, during a visit to the Russian Federation, he was given awards by the International Foundation for the Unity of Orthodox Christian Nations and the St. Andrew the First-Called Fund. In September of 2004, on Patriarch Pavle’s 90th birthday, the President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Markovich awarded him the Order of Nemanje (1st Class). On February 15th 2007 on ‘National Sovereignty Day’ of Serbia, Alexander II Karadjordjevich awarded him the Order of Karadjordjev’s Star (1st Class). In 2009 he accepted the Russian Order of Honor and Dignity because of his “significance during times of temptation which the Serbian people and Church went through”.

Patriarch Pavle was admitted into the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade on November 13th 2007 for treatment and remained there for the next two years. He took communion daily as he had done before entering the hospital. On November 15, at 10:30 am, he was communed and at 10:45 am he had reposed. His funeral was on November 19, 2009, attended by an enormous number of clergy and faithful. In an interview, before the Patriarch’s funeral, Bishop Irinej of Backa said: “he lived life as he preached it”.

From the Serbian Patriarchate website

Translated and Edited by Radomir Plavsic