RFI to Honor ‘Two Lions of Religious Freedom’ with 2026 Defender of Religious Freedom Award

May 8, 2026, Washington, D.C. – The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) will jointly honor Congressman Chris Smith and Congressman Frank Wolf with our 2026 Defender of Religious Freedom Award.

This award is given on the occasion of the RFI Annual Dinner and is intended to celebrate “a person who has defended religious freedom for everyone, everywhere from within his or her faith tradition.” This year’s award ceremony and dinner will be held at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 19, 2026.

“These two lions of religious freedom have, for decades, worked arm-in-arm to defend America’s first freedom, propelled by their abiding Christian faith and relentless commitment to seeking justice for those facing oppression,” said RFI President David Trimble. “We take this unprecedented step of honoring them together because no two leaders in American history have shaped global religious freedom policy, and sought to protect those persecuted for their faith, more than them.”

First elected to Congress in 1980, Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-4) is in his 23rd term in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to GovTrack.us, Congressman Smith has written 68 laws, more than any other member of the House, including several laws promoting human rights and advancing religious freedom.

The former Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Congressman Smith currently serves as a senior member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and as Chairman of its Africa Subcommittee. He has also been appointed to serve as the Co-Chair of both the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, where he has chaired hundreds of congressional hearings focused on advancing international religious freedom. In the 119th Congress, Rep. Smith has also been appointed as a member of the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, which includes the regional focus of Central and South America. This subcommittee also has functional jurisdiction over the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, which covers his groundbreaking work to fight human trafficking, advance religious freedom, and promote international labor rights. He also serves as “Special Representative” on Human Trafficking for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly. Smith previously served as the five-time Chair and highest-ranking House member of the bipartisan House/Senate Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, or Helsinki Commission), and he has chaired numerous other international human rights-related congressional subcommittees and caucuses.

Also first elected to Congress in 1980, Frank Wolf represented Virginia’s 10th congressional district for 34 years until his retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives in 2015. He is the author of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998, which infused religious freedom into U.S. foreign policy. IRFA created the Office for International Religious Freedom at the U.S. Department of State and established the position of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. IRFA also created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) as both a watchdog of repressive regimes and a religious freedom advocate within the U.S. government.

In 2016, Congressman Smith authored the reauthorization of IRFA, aptly named the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, to extend the important provisions of the law and memorialize the outstanding leadership of original author, Rep. Frank Wolf. In honor of Rep. Wolf, the law passed unanimously. Congressman Wolf’s other accomplishments while serving in the House are far too numerous to recount. Following his retirement from Congress, he was appointed the first-ever Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at Baylor University in January 2015. He also later served a two-year term as a USCIRF commissioner (2022-2024).

“In my time as Chairman of USCIRF and in countless other circumstances before and after, I have had the privilege of witnessing first-hand the incomparable contributions of Congressman Wolf and Congressman Smith to advancing human dignity and religious liberty, in America and around the world,” remarked Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. “These two extraordinary public servants are as deserving of RFI’s Defender of Religious Freedom Award as anyone could be, and RFI rightly honors them together.”

The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) works to secure religious freedom for everyone, everywhere. RFI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C.