The Order is a right-wing conservative organization formed around Eduard Yurchenko, former speaker of the National Corps. Its ideology reflects Yurchenko’s own views and refers to the European tradition of the New Right and Alexander Dugin’s Russian Eurasianism (however, Yurchenko constantly refutes links with the latter). It is based on nationalism, monarchism, Christianity, and conspiracy theories such as dark enlightenment. The members of the Order consider their main tasks to be the propaganda of right-wing views through education and the struggle for the minds of young people against leftist filth.
Yurchenko describes himself as a “non-systemic nationalist” and has been involved in many political projects, including the Party of Regions (Party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, deposed in 2014 after Maidan protest). In 2011, he gave a presentation at the Eurasian Youth Union, where he criticized Ukrainian nationalism for being “Russophobic,” while after the Maidan he has become a speaker and one of the ideologists of the Azov movement. He was among the founders of the Ukrainian Traditionalist Club. He actively cooperated with the All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” (aka Svoboda party) and such conservative projects as Katehon and Sisterhood of St. Olga, which tried to disrupt feminist and LGBT events (these political projects are currently closed). Yurchenko also collaborated with the conservative far-right organization Tradition and Order. In the 2019 parliamentary elections, he ran for MP from the Svoboda party under the number 196, which never made it to the parliament.
Since 2019, Yurchenko has become less active within the National Corps. His typical activities were giving lectures or memorial evenings for King Louis XVI, or acting as a guest expert for the Association of Sexologists and Sexotherapists of Ukraine, a private organization that promotes conservative views on the family and criticizes gender theories. In 2021, Yurchenko became an active observer of geopolitical events on the National Corps YouTube channel.
The Lviv center of the Order is headed by writer Roman Ponomarenko, author of books about Ukrainians in the military formations of the Third Reich.
Although public events remain the main activity of the Order, since April 2019 members of the organization have also held street actions, mostly attended by few people. In particular, these are Christian marches and actions against bills to criminalize hate crimes; or, in contrast to anti-racist protests in the U.S., picketing the Interior Ministry under Ukrainian Lives Matter slogans. Members of the Order joined the counteraction during the KharkivPride 2019, organized by Freicorps organization and accompanied by attacks on participants and the police, as well as an attempt to block the 8th March rally in 2021.
