“Mir Vsem” Receives the Democracy Awards 2026

In September, the 2026 Democracy Awards ceremony of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was held at Mount Vernon, the historic estate of George Washington.

The “Mir Vsem” (“Peace Unto All”) project was among this year’s award recipients — recognized for supporting Russian anti-war clergy, defending freedom of conscience, and assisting those who face pressure and repression for publicly opposing the war.

In 2026, the award is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the United States and to the five fundamental freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government.

The award was accepted by all three founders of the “Mir Vsem” project — priest Valerian Dunin-Barkowski, Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin, and musician Pavel Fakhrtdinov.

The award was presented by Sam Brownback, a member of NED’s Board of Directors, former U.S. senator, and former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Other recipients of this year’s Democracy Award included political prisoners and representatives of independent culture from Cuba, human rights defenders and independent media from Syria and Ethiopia, as well as participants in Myanmar’s democratic movement. At the same ceremony, Belarusian human rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was separately honored with the Democracy Service Medal.

In his speech, Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin invoked the biblical image of David and Goliath. He reminded the audience that outward strength and numerical superiority do not always amount to true strength — and that even a minority of people who refuse to accept aggression and militarism can stand up to evil.

It is especially important to preserve the ability to distinguish good from evil when evil tries to speak the language of good. When aggression and violence are justified by the “defense of Christian values” or “traditional values,” those words alone prove nothing. Wisdom and moral clarity are needed to distinguish a genuine defense of human dignity, freedom, and faith from rhetoric used to conceal the opposite aims.

The symbol of the Democracy Award also carries special significance: the award statuette is a replica of the “Goddess of Democracy,” the sculpture created by participants in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

For us, this award is above all a recognition of the courage of clergy and laypeople who, despite fear, pressure, and threats, continue to bear witness to God’s truth.