The Association of Orthodox Experts (APE) is an organization of politically active Orthodox laymen led by Orthodox activist Kirill Frolov that persecutes anyone who opposes Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church. The organization has become notorious for filing numerous lawsuits and petitions with the prosecutor’s office.

It emerged in 2009 and quickly gained scandalous publicity in the media. In 2012, the APE appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to check the Consumer Rights Society for extremism, and also proposed replacing night show program on TV with a “patriarchal program” featuring Patriarch Kirill. The association actively advocated cancelling Madonna’s concerts in St Petersburg, urged football fans not to swear in stadiums to “avoid demonic cries”, and asked for the harshest possible punishment for Pussy Riot.

In 2012, Kirill Frolov, head of the Association of Orthodox Experts, sued famous Russian designer Artemy Lebedev for using the word God with a small letter. In 2013, the APE called for prayers for Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin after their divorce and “not to allow anti-Russian forces to gloat and act as judges.” In 2013, the APE announced plans to convert all of China to Christianity. At a 2015 meeting of the Izborsk Club, APE head Kirill Frolov drew an image of a holy Russia of the future with a church-going people, a powerful army and industry, Orthodox computers, and Mars as a canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church without sectarians. In 2015 the APE asked the Ministry of Culture to ban the film Leviathan and create an “Orthodox Hollywood”.