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.



January 21, 2011

Infertile Muslim Woman Gives Birth After Prayer To St. Nicholas


January 21, 2011
Interfax

A Muslim woman in the Russian Republic of Bashkiria, who was unsuccessfully treated for infertility for 14 years, gave birth to a son after praying before the icon of St. Nicholas in an Orthodox church.

"I'm a Muslim, but for some reason I believed that it (the icon - IF) would help me," the happy mother is quoted as saying by Ufa edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily.

Her friends advised her to go to the church: her marriage had almost failed and the diagnosis sounded as a death verdict to family happiness - it is impossible to give birth with such stress.

It was the first time the woman came to the church, she was a little bit scared and did not know how to pray. Parishioners told her "sincerely, from the heart" to ask St. Nicholas.

Then she invented a simple prayer: "Nicholas the Wonderworker help me, give us a son, please..." Finally, the woman took off her favorite golden chain and left it near the icon - there is a belief that such gifts make a prayer more effective.

She received news that she was pregnant a month later. Her son Tamerlan makes his parents happy: he is so cheerful and clever.
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