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.



July 8, 2010

Fr. Seraphim, the Hermit of the French Island of Porquerolles



The video is a French news report of TF1 (video with Greek subtitles here). It is about Fr. Seraphim, who has lived as a hermit at the Fort of Porquerolles for over 15 years and is over 80 years old. The hermitage is a dependency of Saint-Antoine-le-Grand Monastery, featured in the documentary To Talandon, which in turn is a dependency of Simonopetra Monastery on Mount Athos. Fr. Seraphim was previously a monk at Simonopetra.

According to one news report from 2001:

"Père Seraphim, a 70-year-old monk from Mount Athos, is almost single-handedly transforming the Fort de la Repentance into a monastery. A Father Christmas lookalike, with flowing white beard, paint-splattered robes and an infectious giggle, he walked me through graffiti-covered vaulted halls which one day will house monks' cells. The chapel is already completed, its olive wood screen intricately carved by Seraphim himself - a riot of peacocks and flowers, angels and saints.

"Locals love this monk. 'He's bringing spirituality to the island and yet he is so jolly, so human,' says Katrine. 'Last summer, we watched the eclipse with him, and he got so drunk on Champagne that he fell off his stool backwards. His skirts went right over his head.'"

Fort de la Repentance

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