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 22, 2011

The Conversion of French Photographer Frère Jean (Gérard Gascuel) to Orthodoxy


March 22, 2011
Interfax

Photographer Gérard Gascuel who worked with Marcel Marceau and Salvador Dali and now is Hieromonk Gerasimos says he decided to become a monk after hearing an Athonite monk singing.

"I was 33 when the editor in chief of an influential Japanese magazine sent me to Greece to make a report about the life of Athonite monks," Father Gerasimos was quoted as saying by the Rossijskaya Gazeta daily on Tuesday.

Going around the monasteries he came upon a monastery where there is an ancient tradition to keep skulls of deceased monks.

"I went into the crypt and then life was divided: 'before' and 'after'. When I was going back I met a Greek monk and we talked about the meaning of life. His English was poor... And suddenly he started singing!" Father Gerasimos recalls.

According to him, it was then that he decided to become a monk.

"I made a decision in few seconds. Having returned to France, I delivered my report to the magazine, sold my estate and became an ordinary monk on Athos. I spent many years in the Holy Land at Saint Savvas Monastery in the Judean desert. I met my spiritual father there. I realized that death is not the end," Father Gerasimos tells about his spiritual way.

He became a monk, but he is still a photographer, though he managed to found and become rector of an Orthodox monastery in the French town of Cévennes.

Frère Jean's (or Brother John, as he is known among artists under this name) exhibition will take places in Nizhny Novgorod.

Read more here.

See his official website here.

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