facilitated in 2007 the reconciliation -- is that grammatically fine?

Question

Example with a context (Putin's Holy War And The Disintegration Of The 'Russian World'):

Vladimir Yakunin, one of Putin’s inner circle and a devout member of the ROC, facilitated in 2007 the reconciliation of the ROC with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (which had separated itself from the Moscow Patriarchate early in the Soviet era so as not to be co-opted by the new Bolshevik state), which reconciliation greatly increased Kirill’s influence and authority outside of Russia.

I don't know, but I have trouble following the part in bold grammatically. 2007 seems to be completely out of place. Also, the phrasing one of Putin’s inner circle sounds weird to me. It is as though Putin had a couple of inner circles, which are groups of people whom he maintains close business relationships with and goes to for advice, and that guy was one entire circle, like he himself is a group of people. You know what I mean?

So, what can you say?

Answer 1

Yes, this passage is actually grammatically correct. Lets break it down into smaller chunks.

1 The bit between the commas is a piece of extra information. Lets start with that.

...Yakunin, one of Putin’s inner circle and a devout member of the ROC,...

This means that Bakunin was one of the people in Putin's inner circle, and that he was a devout member of the ROC. This makes perfect sense grammatically.

2 Now if we take out the extra information, the sentence should work perfectly as well:

Vladimir Yakunin ... facilitated

As we can see, as soon as we take out the added information, the sentence works seamlessly as well. If you ever want to see if it is correct, just take out the bit between the commas ;-)

3 Finally, we can adress the meat of the sentence. It reads:

Vladimir Yakunin facilitated in 2007 the reconciliation of the ROC

The sentence could be arranged to say:

In 2007, Vladimir Yakunin facilitated the reconciliation of the ROC

I know the first version must sound quite strange, but both are actually correct.

Normally, the first version would not be said in colloquial speech (everyday speech), however, in an article like this, it is acceptable to jumble up the sentence, as it will still make sense. The author may have done this to remove emphasis from the 2007, as the most important information was the bit before and after.