BELGRADE (SERBIA) – Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday that head of the Orthodox Church in the country Patriarch Irinej has died after contracting the coronavirus.
As church bells tolled mournfully in Belgrade, people flowed to the St Sava Cathedral in the capital to pay homage to the prelate who died at 90, ten years after becoming Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Known to be a conservative, he enjoyed enormous political clout. On November 4, Irinej was diagnosed with coronavirus and had been admitted in a military hospital in the capital since then.
He is the top prelate of the Eastern Orthodox to succumb to the virus.
He became infected after attending the funeral of Metropolitan Amfilohije, the Serbian Orthodox Church’s senior cleric in Montenegro, on Nov 1. He also fell prey to COVID-19.
“I was honoured to know you. People like you never depart,” the President wrote on his Instagram account beneath a photograph of the deceased Patriarch.
The Patriarch “rested with the Lord” and that the public would be informed about the details of the funeral in due course, said the Church in a statement.
A three-day mourning period until Sunday has been declared.
“This is hugely painful and sad for all of us,” said Andreja Mladenovic, 45, after lighting a candle in front of a cathedral next to the Patriarchate building.
“I am in tears, I also wept after I heard the news. May God receive him (Irinej),” said Sofija, 60, a Belgrade home-maker.
In a country of 7.2 million, the virus has infected more than 104,000 people and claimed 1,110 lives.
Believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church amount to 12 million and they are spread in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia apart from the US, Australia and Western Europe.
Irinej was born Miroslav Gavrilovic in a village southwest of Belgrade and fiercely opposed granting independence to Kosovo which is populated by ethnic Albanians.
For Serbs, Kosovo is the cradle of the Serbian Orthodox Church and it has some important monasteries.
The Patriarch supported the policies of Vucic and awarded him with the Order of Saint Sava, first grade, which is the highest honour of the Church.
In 2019, he flayed the anti-government protests in Serbia.
The Church played an instrumental role in protests against a law on religion in Montenegro which allowed the government to seize some religious property. However, following the protests, the opposition won a parliamentary election.
The late Patriarch also supported Serbian attempts to be part of the EU “if the EU respects Serbian identity, culture and religion.” He was also opposed to abortion and gay rights, terming them a “deviation of human nature”.