Catholic Church remembers late Serbian Orthodox head

(November 16, 2009) The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle who died on Sunday in Belgrade, is being remembered by the Catholic Church as a man of prayer and dialogue. The 95-year old patriarch had been hospitalized for two years with heart and lung problems and died of cardiac arrest in his sleep. Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told Serbian media that the Catholic Church remembers the patriarch as a man of great spirituality and prayer, who was open to ecumenical relations and dialogue with the Catholic Church. Before falling ill in 2006, Patriarch Pavle had invited members of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue commission to hold their session in Serbia, Fr. Lombardi recalled. Pope Benedict XVI came to know of the serious health condition of Patriarch Pavle after meeting Serbian President Boris Tadic whom he received in the Vatican on Saturday. Fr. Lombardi said the Holy Father remembered the Orthodox leader in his prayers and was particularly close to him spiritually during his passage to the Lord. Patriarch Pavle assumed the leadership of the seven-million member Serbian Orthodox Church since 1990, soon after the collapse of communism ended years of state policy of repressing religion. He often spoke against violence in the ethnic wars Orthodox Serbs fought against Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims during the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.