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 18, 2025

Threnody Over The Tomb (Photios Kontoglou)


"The Apokathelosis" (The Unnailing) icon by Photios Kontoglou
 
Threnody Over The Tomb
 
By Photios Kontoglou

"It is finished," cried the much-tortured Christ from the cross and bowed His weary head.

That great day was Friday and the Sabbath was dawning. Well, that Sabbath He rested in the embrace of the earth that He Himself created. On this hallowed day the eyelids of His body were closed, His wounded limbs lay down. According to the prophecy that Jacob spoke about Christ, nineteen hundred years prior: "He lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him?"

So the soldiers went, but they did not touch Christ because they saw that He was already dead, and only one of them pierced a spear into His side, and from the wound flowed blood and water.

In the meantime, an official man named Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret disciple of Christ, went to Pilate and begged him to take the body of the Lord and bury it. And Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So the blessed Joseph went with another disciple of Christ, Nicodemos, and with some others who helped them, and they unnailed and took down the immaculate and most holy body of the Lord. With them went the holy women, the Panagia, her sister, Mary Magdalene and Salome, who had followed Him to Galilee and cared for Him and who stood and looked at the Crucified One from afar like frightened birds.

With what lamentation they laid their beloved Master on the sheet they had spread, kissing His tortured body and wiping the all-holy blood from His wounds. Every person weeps as if they had lost their beloved, bringing to mind their behavior and their words, when they were alive. But who has lost such a beloved as Christ? Who was loved more than Him, the Master of Love, who was crucified for love, a young man, thirty-three years old?

Source: From an article in ELEFTHERIA, Friday, 4/7/1961. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
 

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