Belgrade  - Feuding Serbian bishops said Saturday that they had declared Patriarch Pavle too ill to run the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Holy Bishop Synod, a conference of bishops running the church, declared Pavle incapacitated against his will.

Pavle, 93, has been hospitalized since November.

The church's internet site said that the synod assumed all authority from the patriarch, who refused to release the reins earlier this week and threw the bishops who visited him out of his room in the Belgrade military hospital.

The patriarch is elected to a lifelong term by the Sabor, the church parliament.

Pavle took over from the terminally ill Patriarch German in 1990, whom doctors declared unable to carry out his duties shortly before his death.

The Serbian church, which is very influential in daily life and politics, is now deeply splintered between dogmatics and moderates.

The hardline bishop of the Montenegrin diocese, Amfilohije, has been tipped as Pavle's likely successor. (dpa)