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.



May 18, 2015

Saint Stephen I, Patriarch of Constantinople

St. Stephen I, Patriarch of Constantinople (Feast Day - May 18);
Seal of Stephen, Patriarch of Constantinople New Rome
(it is not known if this seal belonged to Stephen I or Stephen II)

Verses

After fading away he departed life,
Stephen thus received a crown where there is no fading away.

Saint Stephen was officially the son of Emperor Basil the Macedonian and Eudokia and was born in 867. But as his mother was the mistress of Emperor Michael III, it is very likely he was his real father along with his brother Leo. He was a student and synkellos (private secretary) of Patriarch Photios the Great, and after his second patriarchate Stephen came to the Patriarchal Throne in 886 at the age of nineteen, according to the choice of his brother, and occupied it while his brother Emperor Leo VI the Wise (886-912) reigned.

Patriarch Stephen I was a man of deep piety. Once when he fell seriously ill, he was healed after applying on himself the holy waters from the Zoodochos Pigi. Grateful for this healing from the Theotokos, he donated to the church his most valuable vestments with which, after appropriately having them fitted, he covered the holy altar of the church on the feast of the Exaltation of the Honorable Cross.

He used his royal ties through kinship to help the poor, widows, orphans and the unjustly accused. Saint Stephen was also a vigilant protector and true shepherd of the flock of Christ. At the young age of twenty-six in May of 893 he reposed and was buried in the Monastery of Saint George of the Second in Sykeote.


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