Jefrem (Serbian Cyrillic: Јефрем; Ephraem; ca. 1312–d. 1400), also known as Elder Jefrem (старац Јефрем), was the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church twice, in 1375–79 and 1389–92, and a poet. Born into a priestly family, of Bulgarian origin, he became a monk in ca. 1335 at 23 years of age. He moved to Mount Athos, and stayed at Hilandar, and later at Zograf and as a hesychastic ascetic in the mountains of Athos. He left Athos in ca. 1347 for a monastery on a river island of the Maritsa near Plovdiv where he became a hegumen. He then moved to Serbia, and stayed in the Monastery of the Patriarchate of Peć. He lived in a cave-church near Visoki Dečani. Patriarch Sava IV built an ascetic cell for him in Ždrelo near the Monastery of Peć. When unrest broke out in the state and Church, the