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 7, 2022

An Account of Saint Parthenios Healing a Woman With Severe Pneumonia

 
By Maria Meletiou-Makris, Philologist

The God-bearing Saint Parthenios not only casts out demons, but as "the glorious benefactor of miracles", "bestowing miracles on all", he extends his miraculous action to all diseases and emerges as a "fervent protector of the suffering and afflicted".

Mrs. Kyriaki Vertopoulos, a resident of Zografou, told us about a miracle that Saint Parthenios performed for her at the time when his chapel was being built at the Lyreion Foundation.

Mrs. Kyriaki was very ill then with severe pneumonia. Her condition was very serious and was becoming even more serious because at the age of twenty-three she had contracted tuberculosis and lost one of her lungs.

Thus, having come down with pneumonia, her life was in danger. She could not breathe at all, had turned blue all over, so she was hospitalized in Sismanogleio Hospital, breathing only with the help of oxygen.

Her husband, who visited the Lyreion Foundation, met someone, from whom he was informed about his own miraculous cure from cancer, as well as about the Chapel of Saint Parthenios that was being built there.

When he went to Sismanogleio to see his wife, he told her everything he had learned. She, being in a desperate state, was moved by the great miracle, she cried and wanted to ask the Saint to have mercy on her and to free her from the torturous disease, and grant her life.

She invoked him fervently: "My good Saint, who does such great miracles, make me well also and I will bring to your chapel a lamp."

She immediately recovered and was released from the hospital.

The doctors who had written her off admired her, they were ecstatic, they wondered how this happened. Her condition was so serious that they estimated that if she survived, she would need at least two months of hospital treatment.

And yet, within days she came out with the intervention of the Saint.

Mrs. Kyriaki has been completely well since then. She breathes without any problem and makes her way up to the chapel of the Saint with such ease, as she characteristically told us, it's as if she is "like a little girl".

So she went up, after becoming well, holding her vow in her hands.

Saint Parthenios is now her protector and helper in every difficult hour.

She invokes him and it is not long before she "hears" his answer, to see his help.

Source: Θεραπευτής των ασθενειών του αιώνα μας Άγιος Παρθένιος Λαμψάκου, Αθήνα 2010. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
 
 

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