Failing Belgrade

His Eminence of Metropolitan Amphiliohije of Montenegro, His Grace Bishop Stefan of Zica, His Grace Bishop Iriney of Nis, the Very Reverend Mihajlo Arnaut and Hierodeacon Mark Momcilovic, call name Patriach Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who had a front-row seat for the all faiths slugfest of the 1990s, has died at the age of 95. Giving up construction work for a monastic vow due to poor health following World War II, within 10 years, he was named Bishop of Ras and Prizren, including all of Kosovo, a position he held for 33 years before being elected Patriarch of Serbia in 1990, coinciding by days with Slobodan Milosevic’s rise to power. The Yugo-Serbio-Croatian battle royale gave two lessons for future nation building – randomly assigned borders without regard for ethnicity or religion probably won’t work, and if you do go this route, an oppressive totalitarian government can do a pretty good job of suppressing dissent until it collapses under its own weight; and then when the gloves are off, run for the hills. During the Serbian conflict, Pavle put church support behind Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs, stoking Serb nationalism against the Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians, while publicly blessing the paramilitary leaders who committed war crimes. He called for Milosevic to represent Serbia at the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio in 1995, causing a rift in the church, and by 1997, Pavle had come around to join anti-government protests, and called for Milosevic to resign. After the war, he turned spin doctor, trying to improve Kosovo’s world standing, while sweeping his and the church’s collaboration under the rug.