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.



December 15, 2023

"Holy Martyr Eleutherios...Either Correct Him or Cut Him Off"


By St. John Moschos

The Spiritual Meadow
(Chapter 145)
 
Life of Blessed Gennadios the Patriarch of Constantinople, 
and of the Reader Charisios
 
We arrived at the temple of Alexandria, in the cenobium of Salama, and met two old presbyters there who told us that they were presbyters of the Church of Constantinople. Also, they told us about the blessed Gennadios, Patriarch of Constantinople.

They told us how he had been greatly troubled by a cleric called Charisios, who lived a wicked life and whom he summoned in an attempt to admonish him. Having not benefited by admonishment, he ordered that he be chastised in a paternal and ecclesiastical manner.

Realizing that the cleric received no benefit from this (for he indulged in murder and sorcery), the patriarch sent for an apocrisiarius, and said to him, "Tell Saint Eleutherios (for it was here* that Charisios was a Reader): Your soldier, Saint Eleutherios, sins greatly, therefore either correct him or cut him off."

The apocrisiarius went to the oratory of the Holy Martyr Eleutherios, stood before the altar, and stretched out his hands in prayer towards the apse, saying to the martyr: "Holy Martyr of Christ, Patriarch Gennadios sends a message to you through me a sinner. Your soldier sins greatly, therefore either correct him or cut him off."

The next day the worker of wickedness was found dead, and all were astonished and glorified God.

Notes:

* Though we are not specifically told which Saint Eleutherios this church was dedicated to, since there were about five different possibilities, we do know that at this time on December 15th there was a synaxis in honor of Saint Eleutherios, Bishop of Illyricum, in a martyrium dedicated to him near Xerolofou in Constantinople.
 
 

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