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 28, 2025

Homily Four for the Sunday of Saint Thomas (St. John of Kronstadt)


Homily Four for the Sunday of Saint Thomas

By St. John of Kronstadt

“And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:28)

So resolutely did Thomas believe in the Resurrection of the Lord from the dead, when he felt the wounds on His hands and the wound in His most pure side: "You are my Lord and my God!" that is:

You have conquered by the power of Your Divinity the universal death of fallen Adam and granted resurrection to the entire human race;

You are the conqueror of hades;

You have opened again the gates of paradise to the fallen and You restored the human race.

Thus did Thomas, who had previously been an unbeliever, believe! Do we now believe in the Risen Lord in the same way? Do we have proof that we truly believe? Do we feel in ourselves and upon ourselves the divine actions of our Savior? Now we not only, like Thomas, touch our Savior, but we partake of His most pure Body and Blood. What then? Do we feel at this time His Divinity as the Apostle Thomas felt by touch? Does our soul then cry out inwardly, like the Apostle Thomas: "My Lord and my God!" that is:

I see that You are in me, my Lord and my God, and I in You; for You have taken from me the burden of sins;

You have destroyed the bonds of sin and death in me;

You have healed my spiritual wounds;

You have miraculously revived my soul and body, having granted me divine peace, boldness, light, strength, all blessings.

Thus the Lord is now tangibly recognized by all who truly partake of His most pure Body and Blood. Here is our blessedness, our joy, our strength! We do not envy Thomas, who touched the Lord after His Resurrection and was convinced by touch and convinced the whole world with his blessed unbelief in the Resurrection of our sweetest Lord! We ourselves constantly touch the Lord and see, we see Him with the eyes of the heart and always feel Him in ourselves. God grant that everyone would have such tangible faith.

May God grant us all to live and act according to faith, and to love the Lord as a Father who loved us, and to love one another as He commanded, and to keep His commandments. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
 

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