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.



July 11, 2016

Saint Euphemia in the Relationship Between Popes and Emperors


Saint Euphemia in the Relationship Between Popes and Emperors

By Eléonora S. Countoura-Galaki

Byzantine Symmeikta, Issue 7

Abstract

As part of his persecution, Emperor Constantine V tried to eliminate the cult of St. Euphemia, by throwing her relics into the sea. This gesture of the second iconoclast emperor had not much to do with his iconoclastic fury as was attributed by sources; rather it was purely a political gesture.

St. Euphemia, who was sheltered at the basilica in Chalcedon during the Fourth Ecumenical Synod in 451, symbolized the Canons of this Synod, which stipulated the ecumenical Orthodoxy between the popes and the Byzantine emperors. Prior to the eighth century, three popes (Gelasius, Donus, Sergius I) were in conflict with the emperors Anastasios I, Constans II and Justinian II respectively, and they devoted basilicas in honor of St. Euphemia, in this way insinuating these emperors had not respected the Canons of Chalcedon.

In the eighth century, when the papacy rejected Byzantine sovereignty, the foundations of the papal state were laid. St. Euphemia lost her previous importance and was replaced, so to speak, on the papal side by St. Sylvestor (Donation of Constatine), who represented the new reality: the independence of Western Byzantine sovereignty. Meanwhile, by destroying the pontifical symbolism of St. Euphemia, Constantine V manifested his intention to submit the universal higher clergy to the Byzantine imperial institution.

The complete article can be found here (Greek).

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