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.



April 4, 2019

The Romiosini of 1821 and the Great Powers (9 of 11)

Galileo and his Inquisitors

...continued from part eight.

28. The Bankruptcy of the Metaphysics of European and Russian Theology

It is known that the philosophical metaphysical foundations of the Frankish and Protestant theological traditions, the philosophical foundations of which Koraes fanatically acted to introduce into Greece, have been demolished mainly due to the findings of the positive and social sciences to such an extent, that European Christianity is in danger of disappearing.

When Peter the Great westernized his state and the Church, the conflict between European theology and the positive sciences had already begun. Nevertheless Russian theology in imitation of Europe established philosophical metaphysical foundations to dogma with the result of destroying dogma when its philosophical foundations were destroyed. It thus became impossible in the Russian Church to deal with ideological situations, which led to the defenestration of Orthodoxy from the center of state ideology.

29. The Social Dimension of the Russian Betrayal

In order to understand the importance of the work of Peter the Great we must have in view that he became tsar in 1682, that is around 100 years before the French Revolution. Hence the westernization of Russian theology and the Church had a vast social dimension, inasmuch as the theology of the Franks in general became supports for European feudalism, which had as a primary trait, as we saw, the division at the core of society between those who according to nature and birth were higher or lower noble militarists, who were called and indeed were "the" Franks, and those who according to nature and birth were serfs, who were neither called, nor were they Franks.

The tsars imitated the Franks and imposed feudalism in Russia. However there was one core difference. In France the class of serfs mainly consisted of conquered Romans and the class of nobles consisted of the occupying Franks. The serfs and nobles of Russia in contrast both consisted of one nation.

30. European and Russian Feudalism are Foreign to Romiosini

It should be noted that in Romiosini there never existed a theological or social theory that divided people into those who by nature and birth were nobles and those who by nature and birth were serfs. For this reason at every baptism of a Roman there was a petition for the "emperor in the City." Furthermore the Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops of Romiosini usually never came from aristocratic (wealthy) families.

In contrast, only those who belonged to the class of nobles in France could become a knight, an abbot or a bishop. The king and the emperor had to be from a royal family.

31. The Holy Inquisition is Foreign to Romiosini

One understands from the above why there was a Holy Inquisition among the Franks, which by way of threats of the death penalty they managed to subject the Roman serfs to the Frankish dogma and Frankish hierarchy.

In contrast, the Holy Inquisition never existed in Romiosini. Never did a saint of Romiosini who was Greek-speaking or Latin-speaking prefer the death penalty for heretics, as non-Roman theologians did like Thomas Aquinas, Calvin and Luther, who all moreover belonged to the class of nobles.




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