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.

"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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