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.



December 13, 2013

Holiness as Reality

Old Man Panais at Stavrovouni Monastery in Cyprus

By Fr. Andrew Agathokleous

They would tell us about and then we would read about saints. We marveled at their great accomplishments, their diverse spiritual gifts, their superhuman struggles. And we said that these things are not for us, they do not fit our own time. Sanctity seemed impossible and the saints as if they were non-existent.

Until we came to meet saints, not as apparitions and "invisible ascetics", but as ordinary everyday people, we felt close to them and they seemed to be just like us. Then we realized the beauty of holiness, the physical and physiological characteristic for humans as the image of God.

My meeting with Elder Sophrony in Essex, Elder Porphyrios in Oropos, Elder Paisios in Mount Athos, Elder Ephraim in Katounakia, Elder Joseph in Cyprus and Mount Athos, Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos in Athens, as well as with Cypriot Elders who are alive or have reposed, was the beginning of my awareness that today there are people who do not simply talk about God but they live God.

But my ten year apprenticeship, almost daily, with the venerable Elder of Lysi, the grandfather Panais, gave me the surety and the blessing for me to be able to say to my brothers, the following words: "That ... which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched" (1 John 1:1) regarding this man of God, whom the Holy Spirit lived within. And furthermore, to be able to assure - since I have been assured - that it is not something of a bygone era nor only for certain people. For the Church of Christ is in the world to sanctify the people to become signs that show the great love of our Great God to all people "near and far".

Certainly the Church is a nurturing mother, helping afflicted people in all their needs. But it does people an injustice when it results in covering only their material needs, and ignores or underestimates the spiritual ones. Just as it results in heresy when it is indifferent to material needs and focuses only on the spiritual.

What the Orthodox Church offers contemporary man as her primary and essential work, is holiness as an experience of the life of God. Then she offers what is asked from the depths of our existence. And man becomes an "image of the living God', that is, he finds his nature, his joy and his fulfillment. He rejoices in life!

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
 
 
Labels: , , ,

BECOME A PATREON OR PAYPAL SUBSCRIBER


Patreon!