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Remarks of National Commander Limberakis at the 2024 Athenagoras Human Rights Award

Limberakis

The following remarks were offered by Dr. Anthony J. Limberakis, National Commander of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, during the 2024 Athenagoras Human Rights Award honoring Yulia Navalnaya, Widow of Martyred Russian Human Rights Advocate Alexei Navalny, in New York City on October 19, 2024.

Your Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, Ms. Yulia Navalnaya, who so richly honors us with her presence here this evening;

Your Eminence Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco, our Beloved Fr. Alex, our Spiritual Advisor and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom; and Brother Archons and Friends,

As most of you know me as the National Commander of the Archons, I AM also, in my other life a radiologist, and as you can all see, tonight I am wearing my pink bowtie in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, October and GO GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS!

There is a myriad of individuals to whom I would like to express my gratitude, but given the lengthy list, my wife made me remove this part of my speech because otherwise, we’d be here all night. I must say, there are so many of you who dedicate your talent and treasure to protecting the future of faith – so please read the program Words of Gratitude Insert – it’s a testament to you – and all that you do. The Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate would not exist without you….but I do wish to acknowledge and express my deep gratitude to our two Banquet Underwriters. The Nicholas J. and Anna K. Bouras Foundation represented here this evening by Foundation Trustee and our superlative Archon National Vice Commander, the Honorable B. Theodore Bozonelis and to Archon Michael and Robin Psaros, Banquet Underwriters. We welcome Archon Mike back from Athens earlier this week when the government of Greece commissioned a postage stamp in his honor as a Greek American Entrepreneur and Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate!

This evening, The Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in America pay tribute and honor Yulia Navalnaya with the 2024 Athenagoras Human Rights Award. Yulia fought politically, metaphorically and spiritually side by side with her beloved Alexei for twenty years to transform totalitarian Russia, into a free country.

Outstanding courage arises as a response to outrageous evil. In that sense, Yulia and Alexei, together forever will be remembered for risking everything to make the largest country in the world, Russia, a free nation, with open and democratic elections and a government that is devoid corruption and authoritarianism. What a tragedy it is that mighty Russia, unlike our own Patrida Greece, the birthplace of democracy and Western Civilization, had been led by the likes of Ivan the Terrible, Joseph Stalin and now Vladimir Putin. Putin will be remembered not only for his unprovoked imperialistic war on Ukraine but also for his murderous methodology in forever silencing dissent in his own county. Do you recall over the past couple of years the mysterious falls from high rise apartments and hospitals of those who voiced and even intimated, opposition to Putin’s regime? And the notorious use of Novichok to permanently eliminate dissent. What is Novichok? It is a lethal substance developed by the KGB and manufactured only in one place in the world, KGB Headquarters in Moscow. It is internationally outlawed and is the deadliest poison ever created; indeed and it is the signature methodology of Putin to permanently silence his detractors like, Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko or Sergei Skripal…and now Alexei Navalny who was poisoned in August 2020, hospitalized in Germany and on January 17, 2021 chose to return to Russia, to a near-certain death. If it was not for Yulia who immediately traveled to Siberia where Alexei had been poisoned and was in a coma in a government hospital, if it was not for Yulia who persisted against overwhelming resistance to have her husband transferred to a hospital in Germany, Alexei never would have survived.

Beginning in the early 2000s, Alexei and Yulia worked tirelessly to expose Putin’s corrupt activities. In 2011, they founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation and Alexei entered politics to try to establish Russia as a genuinely free society. Because he was banned from all communications media which was government controlled, Alexei and Yulia created YouTube videos circumventing Putin’s censorship. These videos which were viewed by millions of Russian citizens made him the most successful opponent of Putin and he became Russia’s foremost defender of human rights and individual freedom, side by side with Yulia.

When Vladimir Putin poisoned Alexei Navalny, Alexei was taken to Germany for treatment as I mentioned. It’s worth a moment to pause and give you context. In August 2020, Alexei Navalny traveled to Siberia to campaign for two anti-Putin candidates. Unbeknownst to Alexei, he had been followed for three years by a domestic assassination squad which also traveled to Siberia in order to permanently silence Alexei, entering his hotel room and lacing his underwear with Novichok thereby poisoning him. However the nefarious scheme for Alexei to die on the plane on his way back to Moscow did not go as planned as the plane from Siberia was delayed for takeoff, Alexei got violently ill onboard while flying back, and the plane made an emergency landing in Siberia and he was taken to a local hospital. Upon hearing of this, Alexei’s most trusted confidant and the one who had been by his side since 1998 when they first met in Turkey, his beloved wife Yulia, flew to Siberia and demanded and ultimately prevailed against overwhelming odds in having Alexei released from the local hospital, now filled with FSB agents, and flown to Germany to receive appropriate medical treatment. Once he recovered sufficiently, they could have gone anywhere in the world, as far away from Vladimir Putin’s evil reach as possible. They could have remained silent about the corruption and inhumanity of Russia’s government. Instead, he and Yulia took a fateful step: they returned to Russia and took up the fight again, where Alexei was immediately arrested and imprisoned, in what was to be his terminal imprisonment. When Alexei was previously interviewed and asked the question if Putin succeeds in murdering him what message did he have, he stated “My message for the situation when I am killed is very simple, [DO] NOT GIVE UP! And that is what Yulia has done. He went on to say, if I may paraphrase, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, if for good people to do nothing. Which reminds me of the words of another Athenagoras Human Rights Award recipient: Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust Survivor who stated at our Banquet “The opposite of Evil, is Apathy.”

And the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate take that identical position, as the Government of Turkey continues to deny basic institutional human rights to the Ecumenical Patriarchate….and The Archons will work relentlessly until the Bells of Freedom will ring from the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George at the Phanar!

Alexei Navalny summed up his own Raison d’être in a statement he made in a Russian court in 2014: “The only moments that matter in life are the moments when we’re doing the right thing.

And our honoree this evening, continues to do the RIGHT THING. Yulia Navalnaya at tremendous personal risk, under an active arrest warrant in Russia has become the leader of the Russian opposition against Vladimir Putin, and something greater than that as well: she is nothing less than the conscience of the international community. With a prophetic voice, she has called upon the oikoumene to show its commitment to freedom, democratic ideals and human rights and take decisive action against the criminal police state in Moscow.

It is for these reasons and many more, that the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in America, together with the Exarch and our spiritual father, His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, are deeply honored to present the 2024 Athenagoras Human Rights Award to Yulia Navalnaya.

Thank you

Please rise.

With utmost respect, gratitude and admiration, we present the 2024 Athenagoras Human Rights Award to Yulia Navalnaya!

AXIOS! AXIOS! AXIOS!

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