‘The most beautiful diocese in the world’: Meet the bishop of southern Russia

Bishop Pickel was elected president of Russia’s bishops’ conference for a second time in March.

For more than two decades, Bishop Clemens Pickel has led a diocese that is larger than Texas and California combined.

Bishop Clemens Pickel. Courtesy photo.

His Diocese of St. Clement at Saratov covers much of Southern Russia, stretching all the way from the Caucasus to the Ural Mountains. Yet it serves only around 20,000 Catholics.

Pickel is originally fr…