Patriarch Pavle (Paul) of the Serbian Orthodox Church died today at the age of 95.

A tiny, mild mannered yet complex figure, Patriarch Pavle did his best to identify a principled way forward during the madness of recent decades in Serbia but found himself entangled in the politics of Serbia’s confused national identity and so had little impact on events.

My own most notable encounter with him came on Christmas Eve, 24 December 2002.

Devout Christian as I am not, I decided that year to join the small Belgrade Anglican community in their Christmas Eve midnight service which by long tradition was to be held in the Patriarch’s private chapel at the Patriarchate (Serbian Orthodox Christmas coming in January, of course).

Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the door to the Patriarchate only to find it blocked by a couple of dozen Serbian toughs in black leather jackets who had decided that their pure nationalist anti-ecumenical principles overrode the Patriarch’s courtesy to other Christian denominations.

An unseemly scene ensued as the then Chaplain Rev Warner tried to persuade them to let us enter.

Finally the Patriarch himself emerged and asked the bandits to let us enter the chapel. They showed him some personal deference but refused. We could have called the police and asked them to force a way in for us, but that felt a bit too unChristmasy.

So after milling around in the late night cold for a while as this absurd scene dragged on, we finally gave up and repaired to the Chaplain’s nearby flat and had the midnight service there. It was all the more touching as it gave a sense of what it must have been like for Christians across the communist world privately celebrating their beliefs for fear of communist persecution.

This story, frothed up a bit for effect, made it into the Times: Mob stops UK envoy attending service 

The main outcome from my own point of view was a Christmas Day with the family ruined by the telephone ringing. I was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to be given a personal apology by the Foreign Minister. President Kostunica’s office also called to apologise.  

This curious episode perhaps sums up the record of Patriarch Pavle: a decent, modest man, who alas lacked the authority to stand up successfully to Serbia’s nationalist extremism?