Paulicians One of the earliest Christian dualist sects,
Marcionism, originated in Armenia (in the eastern part of present Turkey). The church Marcion himself established appeared to die out around the 5th century, although similarities between Marcionism and
Paulicianism, a sect in the same geographical area, indicate that Marcionist elements may have survived. Paulicianism began in the mid-7th century, when
Constantine of Mananalis, basing his message solely on his personal interpretation of the New Testament, began to teach that there were two gods: a good god who had made men's souls, and an evil god who had created the entire physical universe including the human body. His followers, who became known as
Paulicians, were not marked by extreme deviance in lifestyle compared to contemporaries, despite their belief that the world was evil, and were renowned as good fighting men. However, it is not certain that the Paulicians were Dualistic, as in the Key of Truth it is said that: "The Paulicians are not dualists in any other sense than the New Testament is itself dualistic. Satan is simply the adversary of man and God". In 970, the Byzantine emperor
John I Tzimiskes transplanted 200,000 Armenian Paulicians to Europe and settled them in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis (today's
Plovdiv, Bulgaria). Under Byzantine and then later Ottoman rule, the Armenian Paulicians lived in relative safety in their ancient stronghold near
Philippopolis, and further northward. Linguistically, they were assimilated into the
Bulgarians, by whom they were called
pavlikiani (the
Byzantine Greek word for Paulician). In 1650, the
Roman Catholic Church gathered them into its fold. Fourteen villages near
Nicopolis, in
Moesia, embraced Catholicism, as well as the villages around Philippopolis. A colony of Paulicians in the Wallachian village of near
Bucharest also followed the example of their brethren across the
Danube. Slav peasantry in parts of Bulgaria were very likely the first to come into closer contact with Bogomilism and the young Bulgarian church was aware of the danger.
Pope Nicholas I warns
Boris I of the danger of false teachings but he was not specific about heresy as such. Bogomilism was a native Slavic sect from the middle of the 10th century that began to flourish while the
Theophylact of Constantinople warned
Peter I against this new heresy. The Bogomils spread westwards and settled in
Serbia, where they were to be known as Babuns (
Babuni). At the end of the 12th century,
Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja and the Serbian council deemed Bogomilism a
heresy, and expelled them from the country. Large numbers, the majority of whom were of Vlach origin, took refuge in
Bosnia and
Dalmatia where they were known under the name of Patarenes (
Patareni). In the time of
Samuel, Bogomilism spread into Serbia and Bosnia. The most active area became west Bosnia, centred on the valley of the
River Bosna. In the province of Hum (modern
Herzegovina) the Bogomils were also strong, in the cities of
Split and
Trogir Bogomils were numerous but later they took refuge in Bosnia. Providing refuge to those labeled heretics, including Bogomils, was a recurrent pretext for Hungarian rulers to declare
crusades against Bosnia and extend their influence in the region. A first Hungarian complaint to the Pope was averted by the public abjuration of the Bosnian ruler
Ban Kulin, whose sister was married to
Miroslav of Hum, in 1203. A second Hungarian crusade against Bosnia on the pretext of Bogomil heresy was launched in 1225, but failed. In 1254, rebelling against the Papal order to accept a Hungarian bishop, the
Bosnian Church chose the schism. In the following centuries, the Bosnian Church and the heretic sect of the Bogomils came to be identified with each other, due to the scarcity of documents after the Ottoman conquest. In 1203,
Pope Innocent III, with the aid of the King of Hungary, forced an agreement of Kulin to acknowledge Papal authority and religion, but in practice this was ignored. On the death of Kulin in 1216, a mission was sent to convert Bosnia to Rome, but it failed. In 1234, the
Catholic Bishop of Bosnia was removed by Pope Gregory IX for allowing heretical practices. In addition, Gregory called on the Hungarian king to crusade against the heretics. In November 1234, Pope Gregory IX asked Prince Coloman, Lord of Slavonia (brother of the Hungarian king Bela IV), to destroy the heretics. He led a crusade into Bosnia. However, Bosnian nobles were able to expel the Hungarians. In 1252, Pope
Innocent IV decided to put Bosnia's bishop under the Hungarian Kalocsa Archbishopry's jurisdiction. Such decision provoked the schism of the Bosnian Christians, who refused to submit to the Hungarians and broke off their relations with Rome. In that way, an autonomous Bosnian Church came into being, in which some later saw a Bogomil or Cathar Church, while in reality no trace of Bogomilism,
Catharism or
dualism can be found in the original documents of the Bosnian
Krstjani, as they called themselves. It was not until Pope Nicholas' Bull "
Prae cunctis" in 1291 that the Dominican-led inquisition was imposed on Bosnia. The Inquisition reported the existence of a dualist sect in Bosnia in the late 15th century and called them "Bosnian heretics", but this sect was most likely not the same as the
Bosnian Church. Bogomilism was eradicated in Bulgaria,
Rascia (a Serbian medieval state) and Byzantium in the 13th century, but some smaller elements survived in
Hum (present day Herzegovina) and Bosnia until the Ottoman Empire gained control of the region in 1463. Some scholars, who sought certain ideological backgrounds and justifications for their political narratives, argue that both Catholics and Orthodox persecuted the Bogomils as heretics and according to them, the pressures drew Bosnia to Bogomilism. It has purportedly been said that, with the introduction of Ottoman rule, Bosnians were often more likely to convert to Islam since some of them were not adherents of either the Roman Catholic or Serb Orthodox churches. However, these claims have been rejected by some as an anachronism from the Austro-Hungarian era. From Bosnia, their influence extended into Italy (
Piedmont). The Hungarians undertook many crusades against the heretics in Bosnia, but towards the close of the 15th century, the conquest of that country by the Turks put an end to their persecution. Few or no remnants of Bogomilism have survived in Bosnia. The Ritual in Slavonic, written by the Bosnian Radoslav, and published in vol. xv. of the
Starine of the South Slavonic Academy at Agram, shows great resemblance to the
Cathar ritual published by Cunitz, 1853. There are still over ten thousand Banat Bulgarians in
Banat today in the villages of
Dudeştii Vechi,
Vinga,
Breştea and also in the city of
Timișoara, with a few in
Arad; however, they no longer practice Bogomilism, having converted to
Roman Catholicism. There are also a few villages of Paulicians in the Serbian part of
Banat, especially the villages of
Ivanovo and Belo Blato, near
Pančevo.
Social factors The gradual Christianization of the Bulgarian population, the fact that the service was initially practiced in Greek, which only the elite knew, resulted in a low level of understanding of the religion among the peasantry. Due to the constant wars during the time of Tsar
Simeon I, the lands near the Byzantine border (
Thrace) were devastated, and the people living there were left without occupation. The constant change of authority over these lands, and the higher taxes during the time of Tsar Peter I, gave birth to a great social discontent at the beginning of the 10th century. Moreover, the corruption of the church as an institution led to grave disappointment among its recently converted flock.
Religious factors The existence of older Christian heresies in the Bulgarian lands (
Manichaeism and
Paulicianism), which were considered very
dualistic, influenced the Bogomil movement. Manichaeism's origin is related to
Zoroastrianism; that is why Bogomilism is sometimes indirectly connected to Zoroastrianism in the sense of its duality.
Connections to the royal court Most probably, as
Samuil of Bulgaria revolted against the Byzantine Empire, he relied on the popular support of the movement. There are no sources of Bogomil persecution during his reign (976–1014). == Doctrine ==