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.



November 30, 2025

Homily Two on Andrew, the Apostle of Christ (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)


Homily Two on Andrew, the Apostle of Christ 

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery

On today's feast of the Apostle Andrew, we feel spiritual joy, because the Holy Apostle Andrew is the illuminator of the Greek Nation. For each Saint we celebrate, we feel spiritual joy, but we feel much more joy for those Saints who walked the soil of our homeland and enlightened our people and dyed this land porphyry with the fountains of their blood.

We are struck by the fact that the Holy Apostle Andrew from the beginning had followed the Lord with great desire, leaving his first teacher, Saint John the Forerunner. He obeyed and humbled himself before Christ and served Him together with the other Holy Apostles until the end and even shed his blood in a horrible death for the love of the Lord Christ.

Both the Holy Apostle Andrew and the Holy Apostle Philip, we heard this morning in the Gospel, wanted to lead their friends and relatives to Christ. Saint Andrew his brother Peter and Saint Philip his friend Nathanael. They wanted Christ to be the center and not themselves. That is why we who are monks should, with our prayer and our monastic asceticism, direct the people there who approach us. Christ should be the center and not put ourselves at the center.

Let us ask the Holy Apostle Andrew to help us to love Christ, as he loved Him, and if necessary, to shed our blood for His love, as he shed it.

May he also help our Nation and grant our people repentance, because, as we see, great apostasy and unbelief prevail in our days. Our Orthodox people have abandoned the faith of their Fathers and fallen into idolatry and walk after foreign gods and worship various Baals instead of the Triune God. And we know from history, perhaps we read somewhere in the Patristic writings, that God punishes an apostate people pedagogically and for the purpose of reconciliation, and while the Saints intervene and intercede to nullify the punishment, they receive an answer from God that sin and unbelief have become too much. May God grant repentance, before the pedagogical scourge of God comes.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
 

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