Your Eminence, Reverend Fathers, ladies and gentlemen, and esteemed Yulia Navalnaya, 

I know you speak English as well as I do, if not better, but please allow me to say a few words in Russian.  

Глубокоуважаемая Юлья Борисовна! Для меня, как американца русского происхождения, эта возможность почтить вас и вашего покойного мужа, это большая честь. Я хотел-бы выразить вам сердечную благодарность – от себя и от многих других, кто разделяет мой стыд за то что Путин натворил во имя россии, за ту героическую борьбу которую вы и ваш муж вели и ведёте против этого зла.

What I said was that for an American of Russian roots, it is a privilege to have this opportunity to honor you, dear Yulia Borisovna, and your late husband Alexei. I would like to express profound gratitude, my own and on behalf of all those who share my shame at what Putin has done in the name of Russia, for the heroic struggle that you and Alexei waged, and are waging, against that evil.

I find it wonderful that the Archons of the Greek Orthodox Church are recognizing your struggle with this award. My late father, Alexander Schmemann, was an Orthodox priest and theologian who for several decades, until his death in 1983, made weekly broadcasts to Russia over Radio Liberty. He spoke about the Russian church, about Russian culture, and he did so in the hope that the land of his ancestors could “build a free Russia,” to borrow your words, Yulia Borisovna.

I too spent many years as a correspondent in Moscow, including those stirring years when Russians rose up and overthrew the Communist dictatorship. The whole world rejoiced with Russia then. I think we all knew that emerging from long years of tyranny would not be easy. But we never thought that Russia would return to the rule of hatred, grievance and lies. It didn’t have to come to this.

I recently tried to describe the sadness and shame so many of us who want to love Russia over the way in which Putin has perverted and crushed the hopes of those years, and how he has used a corrupt and false claim to some special Russian destiny to launch a cruel, unprovoked and terribly destructive invasion of Ukraine.

With so many fellow members of the Orthodox faith here, I must say I find especially tragic the role Patriarch Kirill has assumed as cheerleader for Vladimir Putin and his murderous war in Ukraine.

The Russian Church was brutally repressed under Communism, thousands of its priests and bishops were killed, and it is painful today to see its leaders — now freely and willingly — extolling a new tyranny and its criminal slaughter of so many. A million soldiers have been killed, thousands of innocent civilians have been killed, churches destroyed… How could any spiritual leader portray this as a just and sacred crusade?

It is two and a half years now since the Russian invasion, and we can only hope that Ukraine can achieve a just peace, that it can begin to build a free democracy, and that those responsible for this crime are punished. Ukraine will prevail, it will find its rightful place in the free world, of that I am certain.

Will Russia? The country’s potential for growth has been set back by decades. The young, educated and creative are fleeing; the hard men, the siloviki, are in entrenched in power. Once again, Russia has become a pariah to the civilized world, spreading lies and death.

It is hard to feel sorry for Russia today, I know. But for those of us who were there on that summer night in 1991, when the coup against Boris Yeltsin collapsed and it became clear that the long nightmare was over, when we all felt the promise of new freedoms, it is hard to escape a deep sense of grief that Russia has come full circle.

I know my father would be as horrified as I am at what is happening in Russia today. But I suspect he would also be grateful to God that people like you, Yulia Borisovna, and your husband of blessed memory, are prepared to give your lives for justice and freedom. You are what allows us all to hope that Russians can finally abandon their imperial pretensions and murderous illusions.

Dear Yulia Borisovna, I will always cherish the appeal you made to Russians after Alexei was seized at the airport. You told them not to be afraid to continue the fight for freedom. “Alexei said that he is not afraid, and I’m not afraid either,” you said. And you added, “I urge you all not to be afraid.” You have amply demonstrated that you are not afraid, and your courage gives us hope. I pray to God that the opposition movement Alexei mobilized, and that you lead today, will carry the flame of courage, decency, faith and hope to finally lead Russia back to sanity.