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 3, 2020

Saint Symeon, Bishop of Polotsk and Tver (+ 1289)

St. Symeon of Polotsk (Feast Day - February 3)

Saint Symeon was descended from the Polotsk princes. He was the seventh Bishop of Polotsk and the first Bishop of the Tver diocese. The Saint’s cathedra was first at Polotsk, but hostile attacks and conflicts with the Lithuanian princes, and the murder of the Polotsk prince (his relative) in 1263, compelled him to move to Tver. Prince Yaroslav Yaroslavich had become Great Prince of Russia, and he chose Tver as his ruling city.

Saint Symeon was well-disposed and kind to the down-trodden and destitute, attentive to the monastic and priestly orders, and a zealous defender of truth.

The Nikonov Chronicle relates that this holy bishop was “knowledgeable about medicine, and well versed in the books of Holy Scripture; he was a teacher, a virtuous man, concerned for the needy, widows and orphans, a defender of the down-trodden and deliverer of the oppressed.”

History preserves for us a conversation of Saint Symeon with Prince Constantine of Polotsk who, wishing to make a jest about his court, asked the Saint at supper: “Where shall the courts be in that world?” Symeon answered, “Those courts shall also be where the prince is.”

The prince did not care for this, and he said, “A court might judge unjustly, and take bribes, or torture people, and is it I who do the harm?” The bishop explained to him, “If a prince is good and God-fearing, and is concerned for the people, and loves truth and he appoints good, God-fearing, intelligent and truth-loving men to his council, that prince shall be in Paradise and his court with him. If, however, a prince is without the fear of God, and is not concerned for Christians and does not think of orphans and widows, and if he appoints wicked counselors who lack integrity in order to bring him money, that prince shall be in Hell and his court with him.”

Saint Symeon died on February 3, 1289.



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