Speaking at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York, Metropolitan Hilarion, the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, said that “for more than 200 years, New Testament scholarship has developed under the influence of myths created by scholars.”

“A particular myth would appear in the mind of a researcher or group of researchers, and then other scholars would take it up and begin to analyze, add to, develop, and dispute it,” he continued. “As a result, the myth became the subject of scientific inquiry, and not the Gospel text, which was used merely as an aid to prove that the inventors of the myth were correct.”

Metropolitan Hilarion is the author of the six-volume Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching.