After bishop Nićifor Perić of Raška-Prizren withdrew from his office (1911), due to disagreement with the Serbian diplomacy, the Patriarchate of Constantinople appointed Gavrilo as successor, as the Serbian diplomacy wanted. There was a conflict within the Serbian Church regarding the appointment of Gavrilo; the "Old Serbs" (clergy from Kosovo and Macedonia) wanted their candidate, the previous secretary of the Eparchy of Skoplje, monk Vasilije (Bogdan) Radenković.[4] While waiting for the Ottoman government approval, the Serbian government changed the decision and ordered through the consuls that Ottoman Serbs request that Radenković be appointed instead. However, Gavrilo ended up being chosen. Meanwhile, Radenković became a founder of the Black Hand conspiracy group.
Metropolitan
After the death of Mitrofan Ban, the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, in 1920, Gavrilo was picked as the new Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral on 17 November 1920. He stayed in this position until he was chosen to become the 51st Serbian Patriarch on 21 February 1938.[5]
Detention and imprisonment in World War II
During World War II in 1941, as soon as the German forces occupied Yugoslavia, Patriarch Gavrilo was arrested by the Nazis who were looting the gold from the Ostrog Monastery.[6]Ruth Mitchell in her book "The Serbs Choose War", wrote "They took from the old man everything, even his shoes. They left him naked except for his shirt. and over rough roads, over the mountains and through the deep valleys, they made him walk, at the point of a bayonet, two hundred miles, hatless in the burning Balkan sun."[7] He later was confined in the Monastery of Ljubostinja.[8] In May 1943, he was transferred to the Monastery of Vojlovica (near Pančevo) in which he was confined together with Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović until September 1944.[9]
On 15 September 1944 both Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo V (Dožić) and Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović were sent to Dachau,[10] which was at that time the main concentration camp for priests arrested by the Nazis. Both Dožić and Velimirović were held as special prisoners (Ehrenhäftlinge) imprisoned in the so-called Ehrenbunker (or Prominentenbunker) separated from the work camp area, together with high-ranking Nazi enemy officers and other prominent prisoners.[11][12]
In December 1944 they were transferred from Dachau to Slovenia, together with Milan Nedić, the Serbian collaborationist PM, and German general Hermann Neubacher, the first Nazi mayor of Vienna (1938–1939),[citation needed] as the Nazis attempted to make use of Patriarch Gavrilo's and Nikolaj's authority among the Serbs in order to gain allies in the anti-Communist movements. Contrary to claims of torture and abuse at the camp, evidence that Patriarch Dožić himself was subjected to mistreatment is doubtful.[13]
Later, Patriarch Dožić and Bishop Nikolaj were moved to Austria, and were finally liberated by the US 36th Infantry Division in Tyrol in 1945.[9][14]
^ abZapisi. Vol. 11. Cetinjsko istorijsko društvo. 1938. p. 193. Ђорђе Дожић, из братства Меденица, у калуђерству Гаврило, родио се 17 . маја 1881 год . у доњоморачком селу Врујцима . Основну школу свршио је у Манастиру Морачи код свога стрица познатог архимандрита Михаила, што ...
^Šelih, Alenka (2002). Država in cerkev: izbrani zgodovinski in pravni vidiki : mednarodni posvet 21. in 22. junija 2001. Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti. p. 471. ISBN9789616242479.
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