Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle dies

Patriarch Pavle, who headed the Serbian Orthodox Church during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s as Serbs warred with neighbours of other faiths, died yesterday, a top Church official said.

Patriarch Pavle, 95, died at a special apartment in Belgrade's Military Hospital where he had been treated since 2007 for various ailments, Bishop Amfilohije, the acting head of the Church's Holy Synod, said in a statement.

"The death of Patriarch Pavle is a huge loss for Serbia," President Boris Tadic said in a statement. "There are people who bond entire nations and Pavle was such a person."

Thousands of mourners flocked to churches throughout the country after Patriarch Pavle's death was announced. The government ordered three days of national mourning until Wednesday.

Critics say Patriarch Pavle failed to contain hardline bishops and priests who stoked Serb nationalism against Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians and publicly blessed paramilitaries who committed war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia.

After the war, he became more vocal in politics and openly criticised the policies of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Although nominally still head of the Church until death, Patriarch Pavle had given up its day-to-day running in 2008 as his health deteriorated.

His body was transferred to the main Saborna Crkva church in Belgrade where it will lie in state until the funeral.

"Pavle was a living saint and he now went to the saints," said Biljana Djukic, 28, a schoolteacher from Belgrade as she lit candles in front of Belgrade's St Sava church.

According to official data, about 85 per cent of Serbs who make up 82 per cent of Serbia's 7.3 million population are members of the Serbian Orthodox Church.