Installed 1752 Successor Vikentije I Term ended 1758 | Predecessor Gavrilo II Nationality Rum Millet | |
Church Serbian Orthodox Church See Monastery of the Patriarchate of Peć | ||
Gavrilo III (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило III), also known as Gavrilo Nikolin, was Archbishop of Peć and Serbian Patriarch from 1752 to 1758.
Before he became Serbian Patriarch, he was Metropolitan of Niš, under patriarch Atanasije II. When Atanasije died in 1752, Serbian patriarchal throne was taken by Metropolitan of Dabar-Bosnia Gavrilo Mihailović who also died soon after returning from Constantinople in the autumn of the same year, struck by sudden illness. Before death, he made succession arrangements with metropolitan Gavrilo Nikolić, who was elected new Serbian Patriarch as Gavrilo III. In following years, Serbian Patriarchate was in constant internal turmoil. Between 1755 and 1758, Gavrilo III was challenged by rivals and finally lost the patriarchal throne, but in 1761, a group of Serbian bishops and other ecclesiastical leaders who met in Niš tried to bring him back, without final success.