Pavle took over the church in 1990 just as the collapse of communism ended years of state policy of repressing religion. He often spoke against violence in the ethnic wars Orthodox Serbs fought against Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims during the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

"God help us understand that we are human beings and that we must live as human beings, so that peace would come into our country and bring an end to the killing," Pavle had appealed — mostly in vain — in 1991 as fighting raged between Serbs and Croats over disputed territories in Croatia.

"It is only the will of the devil that is served by this war," the patriarch was quoted as saying in 1992 but stopped short of naming names, notably not going explicitly against former President Slobodan Milosevic's ultra-nationalist policies, which triggered the wars.
But according to Dawkins, there would have been no conflict in the former Yugoslavia if it wasn't for the Catholics/Orthodox/Muslims killing each other because of their faiths...