The Life and Death of Serbian Patriarch

The Death of Serbian Patriarch

Yesterday evening, as I was walking home from work, I noticed an immense number of people standing in a line. Intrigued by it, I walked its entire length, to see where it ends. It stretched from Palace “Albania” to Saborna (Cathedral) Church, and for those of you not familiar with Belgrade: it’s a long fucking line. Usually, lines like this end in shops selling promotional cell phone plans or giveaways of the latest folk star’s CD.

This time, though, the line ended in a Church where the body of the late Serbian Patriarch Pavle rested. People wanted to pay last respects to the idealized Serbian Orthodox Church leader Very dignifying in every respect, perhaps bar the open casket and masses kissing the corpse (open caskets have been banned in Serbia since 1970’s and we are in an epidemic right now).

So, why this blog post? Everybody who reads this blog knows that I am a well established traitor writing exclusively defamatory posts about Serbia, so let the rant begin:

It all started with 95 year old Patriarch Pavle dying on Sunday. As it usually happens, there was no way that this could be left at that – we all saw the death coming (he was hospitalized for a very long time) and the normal course of life took the toll. The power struggle was already going on in the Church to find a new Patriarch – but that’s nothing unusual and has been like that since the dawn of Church.

But no, the Government had to have a say. Firstly, they declared 3 days of mourning (later extended to four days, since Pavle was buried on the fifth day after his death and nobody gave it some thought). In an attempt to prove their devotion to the majority religion of Serbia, government ministers went along and decided to allow all schools to close and people not to go to work on the day of the funeral.

In accordance with mourning, cable operators banned TV stations including MTV, E! and Croatian public service TV (which is, fyi, notoriously boring and has hardly any programming that could be classified as “fun”).

The Assembly chairwoman called for a 1 minute of silence, which was quickly rebutted by one of the opposition leaders who pointed out that the Assembly had no quorum at the time, so it officially never paid respect to the Patriarch.

The circus went about and for the first time in my life, I must admit that USA Republicans have a valid point – Government should really stay out of some things. What sort of people need the government to tell them how and when to mourn!?

The Patriarch will be buried today and we will go about with our daily routines. Several nazi and lesser nazi’s will try to get chosen by the God as next patriarchs… Yes, the God Almighty Himself chooses the patriarch here: the leader is chosen by randomly picking one out of three envelopes in the hat (there is no evidence that there ever was more than one name in three enveloped though).

The Life of Patriarch Pavle

If you read so far, you are probably wondering who this Patriarch was and why was he so important?

His admirers will rush to point out that he was an incredibly modest person, who was known to walk around Belgrade (unlike most other SOC priests who drive incredibly expensive cars) and visited even the smallest parishes and churches in the country.

Now, what has the Church come to (or has always been like that), so modesty is pointed out as the best priests quality?

Granted, Patriarch Pavle was a modest person, down to earth type of guy, which made him stand out of the SOC crowd. But, what was expected from him? Why was his modesty so outstanding that his funeral is on par with Tito’s afterlife? There are dozens or hundreds of equally modest priests with hearts at best places who live in anonymity of monasteries. There are so many outstanding people, not affiliated with religion, for whom we’d never declare 4 days of mourning.

Pavle’s modesty brings us to the question of Serbian Orthodox Church, a rotten institution in which good people stand out. SOC is a heterogeneous place, but Patriarch Pavle should be held accountable for some of its doings – which is a taboo nowadays. In idealizing Pavle’s modesty we forget to mention that he was a Patriarch from 1990 to 2009.

His Church is responsible for:

• Blessing war criminals (SOC priests have been known for doing this).
• Supporting ethnic cleansing and wars (many outspoken priests were very fond of the idea of one nation, one religion & one state).
• Giving refuge to pedophiles (this is an ongoing problem).
• Attempts and successes in undermining secularity of Serbia (e.g. pulling out anti-discrimination laws from procedure).
• Homophobia (priests lead physical attacks on Pride Parade).
• Undermining women and generally reintroducing patriarchal society to Serbia.
• Extortion and physical abuse of people in Church’s rehabilitation center (this is currently in the media).
• Many more things not too short of selling indulgences…

Perhaps Pavle was a bystander of history and didn’t much influence the rebirth of Christianity in Serbia during the last 20 years, but he does have his share of responsibility of it.

To wrap it up, here is some quotes by Patriarch, some of which were mentioned on this blog before:

• “Serbs can’t live with Croats in a common country”.
• “Many a monther, who didn’t want to have more than one child, is now pulling her hair and sobbing over her lost son in this war, cursing the people and often God, but forgetting to blame herself for not having more children”.
• “Women are not welcome to church during menstrual period, but modern hygienic products can effectively prevent a temple becoming contaminated and can reduce the smell that is created by blood”.

And finally, in 1998, Patriarch Pavle proclaimed a sentence which is now an unofficial-official state policy:

• “To be a Serb means to be Orthodox… A Serb can’t be an atheist… An unbaptized person cannot be a Serb.”