The Serbian Orthodox Church elected a new leader to lead the influential church at the time of Serbia’s balancing between its EU membership bid and strong ties with Russia, its huge Slavic ally, it said in a statement.

Bishop Porfirije Peric, 59, seen as a modernist inside the conservative church, will be Serbia’s 46th patriarch and the successor to Patriarch Irinej, who died in November from COVID-19 at the age of 90.

“The Holy Synod of Bishops ... elected His Eminence the Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, Porfirije, as the Serbian Patriarch. As one of the most prominent contemporary ... clergymen and intellectuals, (Porfirije) ... maintains relations of personal friendship and close cooperation with priests and representatives of other churches and religious communities”, - the Serbian Orthodox Church said in a statement.

He will lead a church of about 12 mln people in Serbia, the other 5 former Yugoslav republics, Kosovo, and dioceses in the US, Australia and Western Europe.