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.



August 6, 2012

Why the Transfiguration is Celebrated on August 6


The Transfiguration of the Lord happened in February and not in August as it is now celebrated in our Orthodox Church. The Church of Christ transferred this feast from February to August because, without transferring it to the other month, the majestic feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord would occur during the days of the Holy Forty Day Fast. That would not be congruent with the Great Lenten services, the sadness of the fast and of repentance which represents in itself the present multi-calamitous life; whereas the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord will presage the future age in itself. The Transfiguration of the Lord is celebrated on the sixth of August instead of another time because the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord is celebrated on September 14 in which the commemoration and memory of the Passion of Christ is again made. And as the Transfiguration was 40 days prior to the crucifixion of the Savior, the Holy Fathers, having counted forty days back from the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, established that Transfiguration would be celebrated on August 6, because from August 6 to September 14 is exactly 40 days. 

Source: Rukovodstvo dlia Selskikh Pastyrei [Manual for Rural Pastors] 1893.
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