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.



November 23, 2015

An Update on the Campaign to Publish Orthodox Texts


Dear Readers:

First of all, I would like to greatly thank all those who have contributed so far to the campaign I announced a few weeks back (see here) to help me publish various Orthodox texts I have been privately working on for the past few years. The positive response has been encouraging and amazing. I know my readers extend throughout the world, but I did not expect the contributions to come from such diverse places. Below is a list of all the places from where contributions both great and small have come in thus far over the past few weeks to support this project:

Australia
Bulgaria
Canada
Cyprus
Denmark
Latvia
Norway
South Africa
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States

Going in to this campaign, I expected at least 90% of those interested in this project to have come from the United States, but it is more like 40% at this point. This highlights the fact that the interest in providing Orthodox texts in the English language is of worldwide interest outside of traditional Orthodox countries. And this only reflects the contributors. Imagine the interest from those who have not contributed! This website alone reaches over 100,000 readers a month from all continents, countries, cities, islands and towns.

There were a few inquiries I received that I wanted to answer in regards to this project:

1. Can past contributors receive access to your "secret" website?

Though this project is different from what I asked support for in the past, if a contribution of $50 or more has been made in the past year and another contribution cannot be made at this time, I will allow access only upon request via email.

2. When will you provide access information to your new website?

I wanted to scope out the interest in this campaign for a few weeks before I moved forward. Now that the interest has been confirmed, I will set about on working to get everything going. Those who have contributed at least $50 once or $10 monthly will receive an email from me within a couple of weeks with more information.

3. How long is the campaign for this project going to last?

This specific campaign is from now on a part of this ministry, so it is indefinite. Those who make any future financial gifts to this ministry of at least $50 once or commit to $10 monthly will receive access to my new private website.

For those who have not yet contributed, and would like to be a part of this mission, please considering doing so below.

Click on the DONATE button to make a one-time donation (a Paypal account is not needed to make a one-time donation):



Click on the SUBSCRIBE button, after choosing an amount from the drop box, to make regular monthly donations:





To send in your donation, please do so to the following address:

John Sanidopoulos
PO Box 320284
West Roxbury, MA 02132

Thank you for your help!

John Sanidopoulos
Administrator

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