born May 17, 1881, Morača, Montenegro died May 7, 1950, Belgrade
patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church (1938–50), noted for his anti-Nazi stand and, later, for his limited accommodations with the Communists.
Gavrilo was educated at Prizren in Serbia and at Athens and Istanbul. In 1910 he became bishop of Peć and in 1920 metropolitan of Crnagora and Primorje (Montenegro and the Littoral). Elected by 50 out of 59 votes in a secret ballot of bishops to the patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church, vacant since the death of Patriarch Varnava on July 24, 1937, he was enthroned on Feb. 21, 1938.
Gavrilo was one of the instigators of the coup d’etat of March 27, 1941, that overthrew the pro-Axis government. After Germany had invaded Yugoslavia that same year, Gavrilo remained in his country but was arrested, interned first at monasteries, and then sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. Liberated on April 30, 1945, by the U.S. Army, he lived for a time in Rome, returning to Belgrade in November 1946. In December 1946 Gavrilo spoke at an all-Slav congress in Belgrade. A year later he called on the Orthodox clergy to cooperate with the government but, nevertheless, later refused to recognize the League of Serbian Priests, sponsored by the Communist Party. In July 1948, accompanied by Metropolitan Josip of Skopje, Gavrilo was present at the congress of the Orthodox churches in Moscow, but he refused to recognize the patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia as head of the Orthodox churches throughout the world.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "Gavrilo" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.