Споменик Српском Патријарху Павлу

Serbian Patriarch Pavle (secularly Gojko Stojčević; Kućanci, September 11, 1914 - Belgrade, November 15, 2009) was the 44th supreme head of the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1990 to 2009. Patriarch Pavle did not take part in the voting before, that is, he did not go to the polls (local, presidential and parliamentary), but on the occasion of the referendum on the new constitution of the Republic of Serbia in 2006, he called on citizens to fulfill their "most sacred duty" and went out to vote. He was able to find himself and a large number of anecdotes from his life have been preserved. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth in Serbia, a postage stamp with his image was published in 2014, as well as an exhibition of his personal library. The "Patriarch Pavle" Gymnasium in Rakovica is named after him. A monument to him was erected in 2018 in Tašmajdanski Park, in 2011 a bust in Mladenovac, and in 2020 a monument in Palam ...

The monument of the blessed Serbian Patriarch Pavle, two and a half meters high, was placed in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Gabriel in Palam. The monument is the work of academic sculptor and painter Bojan Mikulić from Banja Luka. The words of Patriarch Pavle are written on the monument - "Everything will pass but the soul, the cheek and what is good will remain forever". This monument is a gift from the Pale company "Stanišić" to the residents of this local community on the occasion of 25 years of existence and work of this company. The consecration and unveiling of the monument will be arranged according to the protocol and the date determined by the Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia. It has been 106 years since the birth of the blessed Serbian Patriarch Pavle, who was a favorite of the people and considered a saint during his lifetime, and whose messages are still relevant today ...

Patriarch Pavle was born as Gojko Stojčević in the village of Kućanci in the then Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. He lost his parents in his early childhood, and was raised by his aunt. After finishing primary school, Pavle finished the lower grammar school in Tuzla, and then he finished the sixth grade of the seminary in Sarajevo. After graduating from the Orthodox seminary, Pavle left Sarajevo and went to Belgrade, where he finished the upper grades of high school, and then studied at two faculties in parallel: theology and medicine. He left the study of medicine due to the impossibility of parallel studies at two faculties during the war poverty, and graduated in theology in 1942. During the Second World War, he took refuge in the monastery of the Holy Trinity in Ovčara, and later moved to Belgrade. After the war, although the educated theologian was forced to work on the construction site due to difficult living conditions, he began his religious life in the Holy Trinity Monastery in Ovčara due to poor health, where he also worked as a religious teacher for refugee children in Banja Koviljača. He spent some time in the Vujan monastery. He was ordained in the monastery of the Annunciation in Ovčara in 1946, when he was ordained by Paul as a Christian saint. He made a pilgrimage to Blagoveštrenje, and later to the Rača monastery between 1949 and 1955. In 1954, Paul was ordained a hieromonk. In the same year, he was ordained an archangel, and in 1957 an archimandrite. Between 1955 and 1957, Paul enrolled in postgraduate studies at the Orthodox Theological School of the University of Athens in Greece. He received his doctorate in the New Testament and liturgy in the class of the Theological Academy in Athens. He was elected Bishop of Raska and Prizren on November 29, 1957, and was ordained on September 21, 1957 in the Belgrade Cathedral. The act of consecration was performed by Serbian Patriarch Vikentije. He was ordained bishop of Raska and Prizren on October 13, 1957 in the Prizren Cathedral. In the Diocese of Raska and Prizren, he built new churches, restored old and destroyed ones, consecrated and ordained new priests and monks and was close to the people, and he also cooperated with the majority Albanian population. He took care of the Prizren seminary, where he occasionally gave lectures on church singing and the Church Slavonic language. He often traveled, visited and served in all places of his diocese. With [[War in Kosovo | The Kosovo War]], the Prizren seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius was temporarily moved to Nis, and the seat of the Raska-Prizren diocese from Peja to the Gracanica monastery. As the Bishop of Raska and Prizren, he testified at the United Nations before numerous statesmen about the problems of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. He was elected patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church on December 1, 1990. The next day, December 2, he was enthroned in the cathedral in Belgrade. The ceremony was led by 12 bishops, 12 priests and 13 deacons. The election was made during the life of the previous patriarch German, due to his long-term serious illness, at the suggestion of the Medical Council of the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, which was confirmed by an expert finding. Paul's name was put on the list of candidates in the ninth round of voting. Bishop Sava of Šumadija and Bishop Stefan of Žička received a sufficient number of votes to enter the list of candidates in the first round, and only in the ninth round of voting, quite unexpectedly, Bishop Pavle of Raska and Prizren was elected the third candidate. After that, according to the so-called. by the apostolic method of election, envelopes with the names of the three candidates for patriarch were placed on the Gospel, Archimandrite Antonije Đurđević of Tronoš mixed them up, and then pulled out an envelope with the name of the new patriarch. According to the rules of the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the oldest church dignitary present, Metropolitan Vladislav of Sarajevo, opened the envelope and read the name of the new patriarch, to everyone's surprise, Bishop Pavle of Raska and Prizren. As a patriarch, he did not renounce his religious way of life (regular fasting), he wore religious clothes and refused to be driven by car, rode a tram or train, met ordinary people on the streets and because of that he had great sympathy among the people ...