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 13, 2017

Saint Glykeria of Novgorod (+ 1522)

St. Glykaria of Novgorod (Feast Day - May 13)

Saint Glykeria was from Novgorod, the daughter of Panteleimon, a public official of Legoscha Street in Novgorod. The only thing we know about her is that she died in the year 1522.

However, according to the second Novgorod Chronicle, fifty years after her death, on the 14th of July in 1572, after a woman recalled to Archbishop Leonid of Novgorod that fifty years prior she had received healing when Glykeria was buried, the coffin of Glykeria was found behind the Church of the Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus, and her relic was incorrupt.

After the coffin was opened, Archbishop Leonid of Novgorod solemnly put the relic of the Saint in the Church of the Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus. On the same day, a four-year-old boy named Bogdan Suvorov was healed from an illness under the coffin of the Glykeria, after which there followed other healings. These healings became the basis for her veneration and canonization.

In the Tikhvin Church of the Moscow Simonov Monastery in the middle of the nineteenth century, a chapel in honor of Saint Glykeria was built.

After the Revolution of 1917, we have no knowledge of the location of the relics of Saint Glykeria.


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