Let $E$ and $f$ be an Eisenstein series and a cusp form, respectively, of the same weight $k\ge 2$ and of the same level $N$, both eigenfunctions of the Hecke operators, and both normalized so that $a_1\left(f\right)=a_1\left(E\right)=1$. The main result we prove is that when $E$ and $f$ are congruent mod a prime $𝔭$ (which we take in this paper to be a prime of $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}$ lying over a rational prime $p\>2$), the algebraic parts of the special values $L(E,\chi ,j)$ and $L(f,\chi ,j)$ satisfy congruences mod the same prime. More explicitly, we prove that, under certain conditions,$$\frac{\tau \left(\overline{\chi }\right)L(f,\chi ,j)}{{\left(2\pi i\right)}^{j-1}{\Omega }_f^{\text{sgn}\left(E\right)}}\equiv \frac{\tau \left(\overline{\chi }\right)L(E,\chi ,j)}{{\left(2\pi i\right)}^j{\Omega }_E}(mod𝔭)$$where the...

In this short note we give a new approach to proving modularity of $p$-adic Galois representations using a method of $p$-adic approximations. This recovers some of the well-known results of Wiles and Taylor in many, but not all, cases. A feature of the new approach is that it works directly with the $p$-adic Galois representation whose modularity is sought to be established. The three main ingredients are a Galois cohomology technique of Ramakrishna, a level raising result due to Ribet, Diamond, Taylor,...