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.



February 22, 2017

Holy Hieromartyr Telesphorus, Pope of Rome (+ 138)

St. Telesphorus the Martyr (Feast Day - February 22)

Verses

The beheading of Telesphorus brought fruits,
  Bearing a noble end as a seed.

Our Holy Father Telesphorus was a Greek from Terranova da Sibari in the Calabria region of southern Italy, whose name in Greek signifies to "bring fruit to perfection." According to both Irenaeus of Lyon and Eusebius of Caesarea, he was the seventh Pope of Rome. Eusebius places the beginning of his pontificate in the twelfth year of the reign of Emperor Hadrian (128–129) and gives the date of his death as being in the first year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–139).

A fragment of a letter from Irenaeus to Pope Victor I (189-199) during the Easter controversy in the late second century, also preserved by Eusebius, testifies that Telesphorus was one of the Roman bishops who always celebrated Easter on Sunday, rather than on other days of the week that landed on the fourteenth of Nisan according to the calculation of the Jewish Passover. Unlike Pope Victor, however, Telesphorus remained in communion with those communities in Asia Minor led by Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus that did not follow this custom.

Saint Irenaeus testifies that Pope Telesphorus was the first Bishop of Rome to have "a glorious martyrdom." In the Roman Martyrology, his feast is celebrated on 5 January; the Orthodox Church celebrates it on 22 February.


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