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 9, 2017

Synaxarion of Saint Theophanes the Confessor and Ascetic

St. Theophanes the Confessor and Ascetic (Feast Day - September 9)

Verses

You appeared as a majestic star of God,
In as much as you loosened from the darkness of error Theophanes.

This Saint suffered during the reign of the emperors Carus (282-283) and Carinus (283-285), and was born to pagan Greek parents. He came to believe in Christ in a strange manner, when he was very young in age. Once he saw a child who was in danger of dying from the cold, so he removed his own garments and clothed the child with them. Because his father asked him, "Where is your clothing, my child?" the Saint wisely responded, "I clothed Christ with them." Again his father asked, "And who is Christ? We Greeks revere Hermes and Apollo." Then the Saint renounced his father as impious and a Greek pagan, and an Angel of the Lord appeared and took him up to the mountain called Diabenos. There he made himself obedient to an ascetic, who had lived seventy-five years in asceticism. The ascetic accepted him, and together with teaching him the ways of asceticism he also taught him sacred letters. And both teacher and disciple were fed by a divine Angel.

Because the ascetic departed to the Lord after five years, the disciple Theophanes pursued the asceticism of his teacher. In this manner he lived in asceticism for fifty-eight years. Then he was led by a divine Angel outside his cave while seated on a lion, which took him to a place sixty stades away, or eight and a half miles. As he went he preached to all the faith of Christ. For this he was arrested by the emperors Carus and Carinus, who had him struck in the face a hundred times. They then tortured him with various punishments, but when many Greek pagans saw the miracles he worked, they believed in Christ and were baptized by him. By this the emperors were put to shame, and they allowed him to conduct himself as he wanted. The Saint once again went up to his cave, where he lived another seventeen years, and he departed to the Lord. All the years of his life therefore were seventy-five.

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