http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050926/od_afp/russiareligionmilitaryoffbeat_050926150901
Russian admiral named patron saint of nuclear bomber force
Mon Sep 26,11:09 AM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - Historic Russian admiral Fyodor Ushakov -- a hero of
Russia's wars against Turkey and Napoleon Bonaparte -- was designated
the patron saint of nuclear-armed, long-distance Russian bombers by the
Orthodox Church.
Russian Patriarch Alexei II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church,
carried a reliquary and an icon of the admiral, who was canonised in
2004, into the Moscow chapel of the Russian Air Force's 37th Air Army
in Moscow, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency said Monday.
"I am sure he will become your intermediary as you fulfil your
responsible duties to the fatherland in the long-range air force," the
patriarch said.
"His strong faith helped Saint Fyodor Ushakov in all his battles," the
religious leader said, reminding his audience that the famous admiral
of the 18th and 19th centuries never lost a battle.
Fyodor Ushakov distinguished himself in numerous naval battles in the
Black Sea and the Mediterranean, most notably in the Russo-Turkish war
between 1787 and 1791.
But his reforms of the navy were not popular in the upper echelons of
the Russian imperial administration and Tsar Alexander I forced Ushakov
to retire to Tambov province south-east of Moscow in 1807, where he
died in 1817 aged 73.
Ushakov's canonisation as a saint in 2004 follows a strong tradition in
Russia of close relations between the Orthodox Church and the state,
which was revived after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
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