Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has awarded Yurii Yegorov, the leader of the Orthodox Brotherhood of Oleksandr Nevskyi and the Orthodox Choice organization, with a certificate. Yegorov is known in Ukraine not only as an adherent of excommunicated Valentyn Lukianyk (and previously, Valerii Kaurov) but also as a person criticizing the “ecumenical” and “modernist” policy of Patriarch Kirill himself.
The award was presented on December 30, 2012, at a meeting of the Orthodox community in Kyiv with the participation of 80 Orthodox activists who traditionally represent “political Orthodoxy,” an internal church opposition which has resisted the “orange policy” of the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) in recent years.
According to the Russians in Ukraine website, before the beginning of the meeting, a supporter of Yurii Yegorov, head of the Union of Free Cossacks, Oleksii Selivanov, presented the award to Yegorov on the instruction of Patriarch Kirill. According to the address, the certificate was presented for “contribution in the work of strengthening the traditional spiritual and cultural values of the peoples of Russia and Ukraine.”
At the same time, the activity of Yegorov in recent years has been criticized by the Synod of the UOC-MP as destructive and harmful for the Orthodox Church.