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.



September 23, 2016

Holy Virgin Martyr Rhais of Egypt

St. Rhais the Virgin (Feast Day - September 23)

Verses

Longing to see God’s beauty Rhais gave,
The beauty of her flesh to the sword.

Rhais* was from a place in Egypt called Batan (or Tamman), and the daughter of a Christian priest named Peter. At the age of twelve she dedicated her life to the Lord in virginity along with other maidens.

When Prefect Culcianus,* who was known for his numberless executions of Christians in Egypt during the reign of Emperor Maximinus (308-313), had taken a number of Christians prisoner, which included presbyters, deacons and male and female monastics, Rhais together with other maidens had gone out to draw some water at a well and beheld the bound prisoners on a ship far off. When she learned after an inquiry that they were bound on behalf of their Christian faith, the soul of Rhais became full of courage, and she placed herself among the other maidens who had been taken prisoner. The prison warden, seeing that she was a youth, advised her to take care of her own life and not die an untimely death with the other maidens.

The blessed Rhais not only did not heed the advice of the prison warden, but she even stood before the prefect in Antinopolis, and ridiculed his gods. When the prefect mocked the Christian faith and said, "I spit upon the Christian God," Rhais spat on his face without fear. For this she faced many tortures, and in the end was beheaded by a sword. In this way she received from the Lord the crown of the contest.

Notes:

* Her name, though Raidos in Greek, is variously spelled in English as Rais, Iraida, Irais, Herais and Rhais.

** The Synaxarion actually calls him Lucianus, but Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (9, 11) calls him Culcianus.

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