Some say a bad workman blames his tools, but is there a limit to what God can do via a priest's blessing?

The Russian Orthodox Church came crashing down to earth this week after one of its priests was criticised for blessing a rocket that failed to reach its designated orbit and instead landed in the Atlantic ocean, sparking an extraordinary row.

As a popular theologian in the country said the church should be held accountable for such 'services' that it offers, a fellow priest defended the blessing by saying, perhaps to the disappointment of some, that the Church can hardly be expected to perform miracles.

The rocket carrying the Meteor-M satellite and 18 smaller satellites plunged into the ocean shortly after lift-off from a 'cosmodrome' in Russia's far east on Tuesday, according to the Moscow Times.

On the same day, the theologian Andrei Kurayev said that the archbishop who blessed the satellite before its launch should be held accountable for its fate.

'It is very strange that the church seemingly offers services but is never held liable for the quality of these services,' he said in an interview with the Govorit Moskva radio station.

But archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin dismissed the theologian's claims as 'quasi-Christian paganism,' the Nation News website reported on Tuesday.

And another regional priest said: 'Let's put it this way: if you bless a car that has an empty gas tank, it won't start,' he told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

'We address our prayers to God, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of human error or breakages.'

Meanwhile, a space agency official maintained that the satellite was still in space despite not reaching its designated orbit, the NVK Sakha broadcasting company reported on Wednesday.