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.



August 5, 2020

The Panagia Guides Two Lost Women in Tinos in 1971


Styliani Marabotou, a resident of Tinos, was standing at the door of her house on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, on the 14th of August 1971. The island was flooded with people and accommodation for pilgrims no longer existed. Two women with a small child came up to her and asked for a room, just to put the child to sleep for a while. She replied that she had no room, but told them to "come and rest where we will be."

The women then headed to the Church of the Panagia Evangelistria and stayed for the vigil until three in the morning. Because the child started crying, they took him to go to the lady who would host them. When they left the church and went down Megalocharis Avenue, they could not remember where the house was. They had not asked for a name and were standing awkwardly in the middle of the street. At that moment a woman approached them and told them that she would lead them. They did not think how she could possibly know who they were.

When they arrived and knocked on the door, the housewife, seeing three instead of two, said: "I have no place for you and now more of you came?" Then the stranger asked: "Is there no place for me?" and she disappeared. The two women then recovered their senses and began to ask: "How did she know us?" "What was it?" "How did she know the house?"

The unknown woman had accompanied them through the narrow alleys of the island to this house that in 1823, on the first night it was found, on January 30th, her newly-discovered Icon passed through the same door to be kept in the house of Stamatelos Kangadis. Stamatelos Kangadis, who headed up the excavations in 1822-1823 and who first held the wonderworking Icon of the Panagia Evangelistria when it emerged from the soil, had formerly owned the home in which the two women with their small child were being hosted.



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