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.



August 17, 2012

Miracle at Panagia of Valana in Lania, Cyprus


A child in a wheelchair walks again, after sleeping under an icon of the Panagia in her chapel.

August 15, 2012

His faith in the Panagia, and more specifically the Panagia of Valana in Lania, helped an eleven year old boy overcome serious health problems, while scientists had given up hope.

Regarding his moving story, the child and his parents spoke on the main television newscast of ΡΙΚ.

As mentioned, due to tumors in the head and spine, the child was confined to a wheelchair and doctors ruled out the possibility for him to walk again.

At Christmas the child was being treated at a hospital in Germany, and when he returned to Cyprus he had lost all hope for his healing, and he read a book of the history and miracles of Panagia of Valana. Since then, the desire of the child was to sleep beneath the icon of the Panagia, which, as he said, he saw three times in his sleep.

Last April he slept beneath the icon of Panagia of Valana in her chapel in Lania.

Since then his health has steadily improved, and today, the day of the feast of She Who is Full of Grace, the child visited and venerated the Panagia of Valana without a wheelchair, but walking.

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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