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.

[5] 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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[citation needed] He then returned to what then came to be known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while Bishop Nikolaj opted to emigrate to the United States.