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.



January 25, 2016

St. Gregory the Theologian and the Healing of the Castrated Emperor


Sabbatios was the oldest son of the Roman Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820). After Leo deposed Michael I and ascended the throne on Christmas 813, he had the young Sabbatios crowned co-emperor and renamed Constantine. This name was not chosen by chance, as both were iconoclasts who reinstated the iconoclasm of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717–741) and his son Constantine V (741–775). In 815 on Easter, Constantine nominally presided, as his father's representative, over a Church Synod in Constantinople, which reinstated the ban on the veneration of icons.

After the assassination of his father on Christmas 820 by Emperor Michael II the Amorian (820–829), Constantine was banished to the island of Prote along with his mother Theodosia and three brothers Basil, Gregory and Theodosios. There, the four brothers were castrated and tonsured as monks. This was done to prevent them from ever usurping the throne of the Roman Empire, since the emperor was required to be healthy and strong in order to be considered valid for the position, and the empire relied on them for producing successors to their dynasty.

Emperor Leo V and his co-emperor and son Constantine

John Zonaras goes on to record the following significant incident in his Extracts of History. After the four sons of Leo were castrated, Theodosios died and young Constantine lost his voice. This caused Constantine, who had previously promoted iconoclasm, to forsake the error of his past and that of his father, and to fervently entreat God and St. Gregory the Theologian, whose icon he wept and prayed before, asking him to restore to him his voice. That night he saw the great Gregory in a vision, saying to him, "I have heard your prayers, and given to you what you asked for." He then got up and was given by this great Father a book to read aloud, and he read, "Again my Jesus, and again a mystery...." By reading St. Gregory's 39th Oration on Theophany, it was demonstrated to him that he regained his voice for renouncing his past error. Thus the youth glorified God and the Saint.

Constantine and his brothers spent the rest of their days on the island of Prote as monks, although Emperor Michael allowed them to keep part of the proceeds from their confiscated estates for their and their servants' upkeep.

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