The international prize “Faith and Loyalty”

On 13 December, on the day of St. Andrew the First-Called, at the State Kremlin Palace the Awards Ceremony of the International Prize of the Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called “Faith and Loyalty” takes place every year. The Prize was instituted in 1992 and it is a non-government, non-party, non-religious and non-political award. People of different religious beliefs and nationalities become winners of the award. The Prize of St. Andrew the First-Called is aimed to strengthen in the society the idea of moral basics. Its history reflects the life of modern Russia in the fates of our outstanding contemporaries.

The First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation and the Centre, pilot astronaut of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union Oleg Yuryevich Atkov is the head of the awards committee.

At the ceremony winners are awarded a winner’s diploma, decorations of the Prize "All-Praised St. Andrew the First-Called" and the "Star of the Order", a moire ribbon of a winner and the icon of St. Andrew the First-Called.

The International Prize is awarded by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called and the Centre of National Glory Vladimir I. Yakunin, Metropolitan Vladimir of Omsk and Taurida, Chairman of Committee of the International Awards of St. Andrew the First-Called Oleg. Yu, Atkov.

The winners of the Prize include

(the titles are relevant at the moment the Prize was awarded):

·                   Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia

·                   Archbishop Augustine (Markevich) of Lviv and Galicia

·                   President of the Foundation of the Unity of Orthodox Peoples (Moscow) Valery Alexeyev

·                   His Eminence Amphilochius, Archbishop of Cetinje, Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral – Eparch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

·                   Director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Irina A. Antonova

·                   People’s Artist of the USSR, President of the International Union of Musical Actors, Hero of Socialist Labour, the great singer of the modern times, Irina K. Arkhipova

·                   Archimandrite Ephrem, Hegumen of the Vatopedion Monastery on the Holy Mount of Athos