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 10, 2009

Orthodox Night Clubs?



April 10, 2009
Interfax

The Moscow Patriarchate contemplates the opening of Orthodox night clubs for intellectual young believers.

"May be it is possible for us to open a night club where young people could watch a good movie and discuss it through three or four in the morning. We can support such things," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Department for Relation between the Church and Society, said at his meeting with the students of High School of State Management at Moscow State University.

He mentioned that Catholics have established such club in Moscow - the Spiritual Library at Pokrovka - where the visitors can discuss films and read books."

Such a club can be opened even late at night. The Orthodox environment does not need another club with vodka and adult entertainment," Chaplin said.

According to him, working with young people will be the priority of the Orthodox Church's social work. The Church promotes different forms of such work."

Today's young people eliminate moral duality of the Soviet period, when the people had to worship the ideology they had never shared. Young people today have a lot of prospects, and the goal of the elder generations and the state is not to prevent them to design their lives," Fr. Vsevolod said.

He stated that the young Russians "have a good chance to set up a country without any inhibitions, without trying to clear itself before the West or the East, and always looking back at the stereotypes of social life which have been developed by not the best people in not the best time for our country." 


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