The head of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, personally consecrated Igor Pashentsev as bishop of Skadovsk and Oleshky after occupation authorities appointed him to lead the Skadovsk diocese, the Ukrainian outlet IPC-South reported, citing Russian sources.

The appointment advances the Russian church’s incorporation of occupied Ukrainian parishes into a Moscow-controlled structure created after Russia seized the area. Pashentsev will oversee churches across five occupied Kherson districts through a diocese IPC-South describes as operating illegally on Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine banned the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church from operating in the country in 2024 and established a court process for suspending Ukrainian religious groups that fail to sever Russian control. The measure targets Russian control, not Orthodox Christianity.

IPC-South says Pashentsev graduated from a Soviet military command school of chemical defense and served in the Soviet Defense Ministry’s 12th Main Directorate from 1981 to 1992. The Federation of American Scientists says the directorate stored, maintained, transported, and secured the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, but public records do not identify his duties there.

Ordained in 1993, Pashentsev completed the Moscow Theological Seminary in 1998, later led a Tambov diocesan office for relations with the armed forces and detention facilities, and served in the Barysh diocese. Known in the church as Joseph, he held the rank of archimandrite—a senior Orthodox monk—before his consecration.

During a Dormition liturgy—a major Orthodox feast honoring the Virgin Mary—Kirill gave Pashentsev an episcopal staff symbolizing a bishop’s authority and delivered instructions before his ministry began, Russian church accounts relayed by IPC-South said.

The Russian Orthodox Church created the Skadovsk diocese—a regional church administration—on 27 December 2023 after the occupation made it impossible for the existing Kherson diocese to oversee parishes on the Dnipro’s left bank. The new body incorporated parishes across the occupied Oleshky, Hola Prystan, Kalanchak, Skadovsk, and Chaplynka districts. IPC-South describes it as operating illegally on Ukrainian territory.

Russia weaponizes church control while suppressing other faiths

Pashentsev’s appointment is part of the Moscow Patriarchate’s wider effort to control religious life in occupied Ukraine. Religious communities that reject Kremlin authority face interrogations, threats, closures, and confiscation.

Ukraine’s Security Service has accused church structures of recruiting and training mercenaries for Russia’s military. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, says occupation authorities also arbitrarily detain clergy and destroy places of worship while suppressing independent Ukrainian religious identity.

An Orthodox archbishop has publicly broken with the Moscow Patriarchate over its blessing of nuclear weapons. The head of the Finnish Orthodox Church, Archbishop Elia, said he is shocked that Russian Patriarch Kirill uses Christian rhetoric to bless nuclear weapons and justify their use, the Finnish broadcaster Yle reported.

The rebuke comes from within Orthodoxy against a patriarch who has sacralized Russia's war. Kirill is considered a close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Orthodox Church under his leadership openly supports Russia's aggression against Ukraine, calling it a "holy war," per the Institute for the Study of War.

On Saturday, Kirill called Russian nuclear weapons a manifestation of "God's grace" and linked the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb to the prayers of Saint Serafim of Sarov, saying during the divine liturgy that the bomb was created "by God's grace and mercy."

The archbishop says there is no "Orthodox nuclear weapon"

Elia rejected the theology outright. In Orthodox liturgy, the church always prays for peace in the whole world, not for the victory of one country's weapons, he said, and there is no such thing as an "Orthodox nuclear weapon."

The archbishop drew a clear line about the church's role.

"The task of the church is not to bless weapons of mass destruction," Elia said in a statement published on the Finnish Orthodox Church's website.

Invoking a saint of love and humility angers him most

What most disturbed Elia was the act of tying a beloved saint to a nuclear blessing. He was especially angered that the name of Serafim of Sarov was linked to blessing nuclear weapons, calling the association a profound distortion.

Elia contrasted the saint with the patriarch. Serafim "was a man of love, forgiveness, and humility, and essentially embodied everything diametrically opposed to the current patriarch," he said. Serafim of Sarov is one of the most revered saints among Orthodox believers in Russia and beyond, including in Finland.