Bishop Diomid, head of the diocese of the sparsely populated Chukotka Peninsula in Russia's extreme northeast, who was also barred from holding services on Friday, was reported to have lodged an appeal.
The cleric refused to express remorse, which was a condition set down by the Orthodox Church to suspend the defrocking process, and led a service on Sunday.
"We have received no documents relating to his appeal and have only heard about this from media reports," said Father Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the Moscow Patriarchy's press service.
He said the Church court would not have accepted the complaint, as Bishop Diomid had been defrocked by the eparchial council, the Church's top judicial authority.
Vigilyansky said the bishop could set out his case again at a Holy Synod session. Earlier reports said the Church's ruling body would gather in mid-July.
Diomid had criticized the Church for backing the current government's "anti-people" policies and contacts with other faiths. In a letter published in a leading newspaper, he also called the Group of Eight, a forum for leading industrialized nations, a body of global Masonry, designed to pave the way for the arrival of a single global leader, or antichrist. The bishop also called for an end to tax payer identification numbers, modern passports and cell phones.
Speaking on Sunday at a church service in Anadyr, the capital of Chukotka, Bishop Diomid said he would not repent, as he did not concede any wrongdoing.
In a resolution, the Orthodox Church's eparchial council denied the bishop's accusations, saying the Church has always expressed its concern over negative social incidents, and that Diomid's calls for rejecting contacts with other religious groups are a display of sectarian ideology aiming to cause a schism.
Vigilyansky expressed doubt that the renegade cleric was seeking the "purity of Orthodoxy," saying many of his steps were in violation of the Church's canons and rules.
The cleric moved to allay fears of a Church split, saying Diomid could only develop "a small and marginal group" of supporters.
He said the Church has already experienced several splits since the collapse of the Soviet Union in early the 1990s.
Priest Gleb Yakunin, also a lawmaker and prominent human rights activist, was defrocked after refusing to obey the Church's ban on clergymen running for parliament. In an open letter to the patriarch he also raised other sensitive issues: the Church's deep involvement in politics despite the official position, the spiritual health of the hierarchy, a need for a church administration reform, and the need for a public repentance by the hierarchy for their complicity with the Soviet regime.
Yakunin has established the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church.
