Having entered the Christmas season, we ask those who find the work of the Mystagogy Resource Center beneficial to them to help us continue our work with a generous financial gift as you are able. As an incentive, we are offering the following booklet.

In 1909 the German philosopher Arthur Drews wrote a book called "The Myth of Christ", which New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman has called "arguably the most influential mythicist book ever produced," arguing that Jesus Christ never existed and was simply a myth influenced by more ancient myths. The reason this book was so influential was because Vladimir Lenin read it and was convinced that Jesus never existed, thus justifying his actions in promoting atheism and suppressing the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union. Moreover, the ideologues of the Third Reich would go on to implement the views of Drews to create a new "Aryan religion," viewing Jesus as an Aryan figure fighting against Jewish materialism. 

Due to the tremendous influence of this book in his time, George Florovsky viewed the arguments presented therein as very weak and easily refutable, which led him to write a refutation of this text which was published in Russian by the YMCA Press in Paris in 1929. This apologetic brochure titled "Did Christ Live? Historical Evidence of Christ" was one of the first texts of his published to promote his Neopatristic Synthesis, bringing the patristic heritage to modern historical and cultural conditions. With the revival of these views among some in our time, this text is as relevant today as it was when it was written. 

Never before published in English, it is now available for anyone who donates at least $20 to the Mystagogy Resource Center upon request (please specify in your donation that you want the book). Thank you.



May 17, 2010

The Conversion of Klaus Kenneth to Orthodoxy


Klaus Kenneth was born in Czechoslovakia in 1945. He had a troubled childhood which eventually lead to criminal behavior and imprisonment as a teenager and young adult. Afterwards he began a spiritual search and embarked on many travels. He participated in the occult, Transcendental Meditation, drug-taking, levitation, ecstasies, etc. All this lead him on a path towards Hinduism, and to learn Hinduism he moved to Calcutta, India. In India he met many gurus and even Mother Theresa. In 1978 he became disillusioned by Hinduism and went to the Holy Land. Soon after he was attracted to Buddhism. In 1983 he met Elder Sophrony in Lausanne and England, and by 1986 he was baptized Orthodox in Geneva with Elder Sophrony as his spiritual father.

To read more about his life, see here.

To view a talk he gave on 15 April 2010 in Greece, see below (it begins in Greek, but at 11 minutes in the talk turns to English).

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