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.



March 17, 2011

15,000 Orthodox In China Suffer From Lack of Priests


March 16, 2011
Interfax

The head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk is concerned with the position of Orthodox believers in China.

"Today China's Orthodox believers suffer from lack of priests and regular services. The Russian Orthodox Church as the Mother Church is interested in restoring the Chinese Autonomous Church. At this stage our Church is ready to extend multilateral help to Chinese believers, first of all, to help Chinese priests appear," he said in his interview to the Vesti.ru website.

According to the hierarch, "while the number of Catholics and Protestants in modern China is growing, Orthodox believers in the country who have more than a 300-year tradition unfortunately are deprived of a possibility to lead a normal church life."

The Metropolitan says that today China has up to 15 thousand Orthodox believers, who live in Beijing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang Province and the autonomous districts Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The Chinese Orthodox Church has only two Chinese priests aged over 80.

The Metropolitan mentioned that the Chinese side had earlier permitted a priest from Russia to celebrate Easter service for compatriots in Harbin's Protection Church and expressed hope that the practice of pastoral visits of Russian priests to China's Orthodox communities that lack their own priests, especially on Easter and Christmas, "will be preserved and spread to other cities."

The Metropolitan also noted that Sts Peter and Paul Fellowship in Hong Kong has been translating Orthodox prayer books, texts of the holy fathers and modern theological, ascetic and moral literature into Chinese for the past ten years.

Read the interview here.
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