Euchites

They are first mentioned in the 370s by Ephrem the Syrian, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Jerome, and are also mentioned by Archbishop Atticus of Constantinople, Theodotus of Antioch, and Archbishop Sisinnius I of Constantinople. They were first condemned as heretical in a synod in 383 AD (Side, Pamphylia), whose acta was referred to in the works of Photius. Their leader was supposedly a man named Peter who claimed to be Jesus. Before being stoned for his blasphemies, he promised his followers that after three days he would rise from his tomb in the shape of a wolf, attracting the title of Lycopetrus or Peter the Wolf. They continued to exist for several centuries, influencing the Bogomils of Bulgaria (who are called Lycopetrians in an abjuration formula of 1027) Modern scholarship has also questioned whether a coherent heretical movement existed behind these condemnations, and has emphasised instead the friction in the Eastern Church caused by Messalianism's "ascetical practices and imagistic language far more characteristic of Syriac Christianity than of the imperial Church centred on Constantinople". ==Teachings==

The sect's teaching asserted that: • The essence (ousia) of the Trinity could be perceived by the carnal senses. • The Threefold God transformed himself into a single hypostasis (substance) in order to unite with the souls of the perfect. • God has taken different forms in order to reveal himself to the senses. • Only such sensible revelations of God confer perfection upon the Christian. • The state of perfection, freedom from the world and passion, is therefore attained solely by prayer, not through the church, baptism and or any of the sacraments, which have no effect on the passions or the influence of evil on the soul (hence their name, which means "Those who pray"). Messalians taught that once a person experienced the essence of God they were freed from moral obligations or ecclesiastical discipline. They had male and female teachers, the "perfecti", whom they honored more than the clergy. The condemnation of the sect by John Damascene and Timothy of Constantinople expressed the view that the sect espoused a sort of mystical materialism. Their critics also accused them of incest, cannibalism and "debauchery" (in Armenia, their name came to mean "filthy") but scholars reject these claims. ==In Mandaean texts==

Gelbert (2013, 2023) suggests that in the Ginza Rabba (Right Ginza 9.1), the Mandaic term minunaiia ("Mnunaeans" or "Minunaeans") is actually a reference to the Messalians or Euchites. ==See also==