ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY THEN AND NOW: Pascha At White Castle

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.

June 7, 2012

Pascha At White Castle

As a fan of Jon Hein and fast food, I decided to watch the new show "Fast Food Mania" a few days ago and was surprised to see featured in their segment on White Castle a Greek Orthodox priest who was inducted into the prestigious White Castle Hall of Fame, which apparently is harder to get into than Harvard University. 7,980 people have tried to get into the Hall of Fame since 2001, but only 80 have been inducted. One of them is Father John Stavropoulos. Here is why in his own words:

When I was the pastor of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio, on Easter Sunday night (every year) after having fasted from meat for 40 days, a group of my parishioners and I would leave the resurrection service, which ended at 2:30 a.m. We’d immediately head down the street to White Castle and we would break the 40-day meat fast.

Now, I am not talking about a few people. There were at least 35 to 40 cars in the drive-thru. So close to 200 people would crave Sliders® (normally Greeks eat lamb on that night), but we found that Sliders® were quick, easy, tasty and available. Each year for three years the good word got out that Father John was leading the caravan to White Castle.