The tiny old man with a fluffy white beard who walks the streets of Belgrade like an ordinary pedestrian is revered as "His Holiness".
For 50 years, Patriarch Pavle was a monk from Prizren, in Kosovo. Although Orthodox priests are allowed to marry, he remained celibate. His life is one of abstinence; he does not eat meat nor - a rare phenomenon in Serbia - does he drink. A living saint, the Serbs call him.
But since NATO attacked Yugoslavia on March 24th, this diminutive cleric has tried the patience of President Slobodan Milosevic's regime.
When the government asked him to condemn the bombardment on television and in interviews, he answered that now was a time for prayer. When asked to deny that Serb forces had committed atrocities in Kosovo, he responded elusively that "God knows the truth".
And this weekend, as Serbia celebrated the Orthodox Easter - a holiday more important here than Christmas - the Yugoslav Defence Ministry demanded that the patriarch support the government more forcefully in its war effort. He did not respond.
Who would have expected to find the most outspoken - indeed, the only outspoken - opponents of Mr Milosevic among the gentle priests of the Church of Alexander Nevsky? They are far less reserved than their spiritual leader, the patriarch.
"The authorities have no moral right to ask what they are asking of the church," Father Branislav Jelic (32) said after Easter liturgy yesterday. "They did not give anything to the church, and they systematically destroyed the Christian spirit, faith and morality of people. The property taken from the church after the second World War has not been returned yet. They do not permit the teaching of religion in schools."
Last Friday night Father Branislav received his call-up papers from the Yugoslav army. Beneath his calm demeanour, you sense anxiety.
"I will go and explain to them that I cannot possibly do military service," he said. "A priest in training cannot kill anyone, and if it happens to a priest he cannot be a priest any more. I do not think the military understand the regulations of the church."
When I asked Father Vajo Joric, the priest who read the Easter liturgy, about the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo, he did not deny that it had happened, as Serb officials do.
"Jesus would cry," Father Vajo said. "He would mourn over the criminals as he did when he was crucified. Human love withered here. We do not esteem the suffering of Serbs more than the suffering of Albanians. God loves everyone equally."
In his sermon, a message from Patriarch Pavle, Father Vajo asked the Orthodox worshippers to forgive their enemies and to pray for them. It seemed a generous thought, especially when the Pentagon and NATO had threatened over the weekend to bomb Belgrade bridges crowded with civilians, as well as Serb television stations, on the grounds that they were broadcasting propaganda.
Although the Church of Alexander Nevsky was completed only in 1927, its frescoes showing the life of Christ and the patriarchs of the Orthodox Church already look ancient, their paint flaking and their features dulled by decades of incense and candle smoke.
Parishioners clutched bundles of mustard-coloured wax tapers, but few burned them. They were hoarding them for home, anticipating power cuts because of the bombings.
A few wiped tears from their eyes during the ceremony. Others glanced at their watches. It is hard to stand in one place for 2 1/2 hours.
A giant face of Christ, his hand raised in the three-fingered Serb salute signifying the Holy Trinity, stared down from inside the dome. The Serbs around me would not have looked out of place on any street in Dublin, only a little taller and poorer.
The hallelujahs that drifted down from the choir were a reminder of western Europe; the cyrillic writing beneath the icons and the gem-studded, Byzantine vestments worn by their Serb forefathers in the frescoes evidence of their Slavic, eastern origin.
Those leaving the church were handed a white sheet of paper, printed with red ink. "Friend, believe there is hope!" it said. "Instructions for soldiers and policemen and everyone whose life is in danger."
No one can go to paradise unless he is baptised, it warned. So if someone is dying near an Orthodox Christian, the believer must say: "I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen."
In the priests' quarters after the liturgy, Father Vajo, an almost biblical figure with his long dark hair and beard, greeted us with a basket of dyed eggs; not pastel colours like those we know, but shades of dark green, red and brown. "Every guest must take an egg," he said, "the symbol of the victory of life over death. Marija Magdalena met the Roman Emperor Tiberias and gave him a red egg to announce the resurrection of Christ."
The Serb Orthodox Church was founded by St Sava in 1219, although as Father Vajo pointed out, the region became Christian under the rule of Theodoseus in 863. In just five decades Yugoslavia's post-second World War communist regime did more to harm the church than four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule, the priests agreed.
"People accepted other gods - the personality cult of Josip Broz [Tito], communism as an alternative to the church," Father Branislav said.
"I personally believe that Serbs are still the same," Father Milan Milovanovic (62) joined in. "But they must free themselves from this government."
He thinks God is punishing the Serbs "because we allowed such a great nation to become communist and atheist".
Father Branislav attributed Serbia's woes to more temporal factors. "We are paying the price for the wrong choice. This government is bad, but the people elected them," he said.
Father Milan disagreed: "They won the elections through fraud and media propaganda."
"We are in contact with our people," Father Vajo said. "This is how the common people think. Our authorities are a mystery even to us."
Mr Milosevic's regime is merely a continuation of communist rule by another name, the priests said. "They abuse their power and they are all very, very, very rich," Father Milan complained. "And we are poorer and poorer. They did not feel the sanctions and they are not hurt by the war."
"The sanctions hurt our children," Father Vajo added. "But the authorities were not hurt at all. They benefited from the sanctions because they could sell us everything at higher prices."
The Orthodox clergy do not want to lose Kosovo, which is holy to them, but they believe the province's autonomy should not have been rescinded, that Albanians and Serbs could have lived there together. "Serbs are united now because of Kosovo," Father Milan continued. "Not because of the authorities. This is abused by the government, who give the impression that we are supporting them."
"We appeal to the world's leaders not to bomb people, because people are not to blame," Father Vujo said. "Our factories provided the livelihood for thousands and thousands of families. Children are punished, our bridges are blown up."
A dictator untouched by sanctions or bombing, a long-suffering population whose plight is only worsened by the West's bungling. . .
Sound familiar?