Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle dies

By Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE (Reuters) - 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 on Sunday, a top church official said.

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 Pavle's death was announced. The government ordered three days of national mourning until Wednesday.

Critics say 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 criticized the policies of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

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

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