Bogomilism is the Gnostic dualistic sect, the
synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and local Slavonic Church reform movement in Bulgaria
between 950 and 1396.
The Origin
The now defunct Gnostic social-religious movement and doctrine originated in the time of
Peter I of Bulgaria (927-969) as a reaction against state and clerical oppression. In spite of all measures of repression, it remained strong
and popular until the fall of Bulgaria in the end of 14th century.
It is difficult to ascertain whether the name was taken from the reputed founder of that movement, priest Bogumil or Bogomil, (Bulgarian: поп
Богомил) ('поп' means literally priest in Bulgarian) or whether he assumed that name after it had been given to the whole sect.
The word is a direct translation into Slavonic of Massaliani, the
Syriac name of the sect corresponding to the Greek Euchites. The Bogomils are identified with the Massaliani in
Slavonic documents of the 13th century.
It is a complicated task to determine the true character and the tenets of any ancient sect, considering that almost all the
information that has reached us comes from their opponents. Much of the heretical literature has
either perished or been completely changed, but some has survived in a modified written form or through oral tradition.
Concerning the Bogomils something can be gathered from the information collected by Euthymius
Zygadenus in the 12th century, and from the polemic Against the Newly-Appeared
Heresy of the Bogomils written in Slavonic by St
Kozma during the 10th century. The old Slavonic lists of forbidden books of the
15th and 16th century also give us a clue to the
discovery of this heretical literature and of the means the Bogomils employed to carry on their propaganda. Much may also be learned from the doctrines of the numerous heretical sects which arose in
Medieval Russia after the 11th century.
The Bogomils were undoubtedly the connecting link between the so-called heretical sects of the East and those of the West.
They were, moreover, the most active agents in disseminating such teachings in Russia and among
all the nations of Europe. They may have found in some places a soil already prepared by more
ancient tenets which were preserved in spite of the persecution of the institutional Church, and handed down from the period of
primitive Christianity. In the 12th and 13th century the Bogomils were already known in the West as
"Bulgari." In 1207 the Bulgarorum heresis is mentioned. In 1223 the Albigenses are declared to be the local Bougres, and at the same
period mention is made of the "Pope of the Albigenses who resided within the confines of Bulgaria." The Cathars and Patarenes, the Waldenses, the
Anabaptists, and in Russia the Strigolniki,
Molokani and Doukhobors, have all at different times been
either identified with the Bogomils or closely connected with them.
Doctrine
From the imperfect and conflicting data which are available one positive result can be gathered: that the Bogomils were both
Adoptionists and Manichaeans. They had accepted the
teaching of Paul of Samosata, though at a later period the name of Paul was believed to
be that of the Apostle; and they were not quite free from the Dualistic principle of the
Gnostics, at a later period too much identified with the teaching of Mani, by Photius, Petrus Siculus, and other authors. Both Paulicians and Manichaeans were dualists, but the former ascribed the
creation of the world to the evil God; the latter, to the good God; and the former held the Scriptures in higher honor. They even condemned Mani, comparing him to Buddha.
They rejected the Christianity of the orthodox churches and did not accept the docetic teaching
of some of the other sects. Taking as our starting-point the teaching of the heretical sects in Ruthenia, notably those of the
14th century, which are a direct continuation of the doctrines held by the Bogomils, we
find that they denied the divine birth of Christ, the personal coexistence of the Son with the
Father and Holy Ghost, and the validity of sacraments and
ceremonies. They rejected the title of theotokos (mother of God), and refused all veneration
to Mary. The miracles performed by Jesus were interpreted in a spiritual
sense, not as real material occurrences; the Church was the in-tenor spiritual church in which all held equal share.
Baptism was only to be practised on grown men and women. The Bogomils repudiated infant baptism,
and considered the baptismal rite to be of a spiritual character neither by water nor by oil but by self-abnegation, prayers and chanting of
hymns.
Karp Strigolnik, who in the 14th century preached the doctrine in Novgorod, explained that St Paul had taught that simpleminded men should instruct
one another; therefore they elected their "teachers" from among themselves to be their spiritual guides, and had no special
priests. Prayers were to be said in private houses, not in separate buildings such as churches.
Ordination was conferred by the congregation and not by any specially appointed minister. The congregation were the "elect," and
each member could obtain the perfection of Christ and become a Christ or "Chuist." Marriage was not a sacrament. The Bogomils refused to fast on Mondays and Fridays. They rejected monachism. They declared Christ to be the Son of God only through grace like other prophets, and that the
bread and wine of the eucharist were not transformed into flesh and blood; that the last
judgment would be executed by God and not by Jesus; that the images and the cross were idols and the veneration of saints and
relics idolatry.
These Paulician doctrines have survived in the great Russian sects,
and can be traced back to the teachings and practice of
the Bogomils. But in addition to these doctrines of an adoptionist
origin, they held the Manichaean dualistic conception of the
origin of the world. This has been partly preserved in some of their
literary remains, and has taken deep root in the beliefs and
traditions of the Bulgarians and other nations with substantial Bogomil followings. The chief
literature of all the heretical sects throughout the ages has been that of apocryphal Biblical narratives, and the popes Jeremiah or Bogumil are directly mentioned as authors of such forbidden books "which no orthodox dare
read." Though these writings are mostly of the same origin as those from the older lists of apocryphal books, they underwent a
modification at the hands of their Bogomil editors, so as to be useful for the propagation of their own specific doctrines.
In its most simple and attractive form--one at the same time invested with the authority of the reputed holy author--their
account of the creation of the world and of man; the origin of sin and redemption, the history of the Cross, and the disputes
between body and soul, right and wrong, heaven and hell, were embodied either in "Historiated Bibles" (Palcyaf)
or in
special dialogues held between Christ and his disciples, or between
renowned Fathers of the Church who expounded these views in a
simple manner adapted to the understanding of the people (Lucidaria).
The Bogomils taught that God had two sons, the elder Satanail and the younger Michael. The elder son rebelled against the
father and became the evil spirit. After his fall he created the lower heavens and the earth and tried in vain to create man; in
the end he had to appeal to God for the Spirit. After creation Adam
was allowed to till the
ground on condition that he sold himself and his posterity to the owner
of the earth. Then Michael was sent in the form of a man;
he became identified with Jesus, and was "elected" by God after the
baptism in the Jordan.
When the Holy Ghost
(again Michael) appeared in the shape of the dove, Jesus received power
to break the covenant in the form of a clay tablet (hierographon) held
by Satanail from Adam. He had now become the angel Michael
in a human form; as such he vanquished Satanail, and deprived him of
the termination -il = God, in which his power
resided. Satanail was thus transformed into Satan. Through his machinations the crucifixion
took place, and Satan was the originator of the whole Orthodox community with its churches,
vestments, ceremonies, sacraments and fasts, with its monks and priests. This world being the work of Satan, the perfect must
eschew any and every excess of its pleasure. But the Bogomils did not go as far as to recommend asceticism.
They held the "Lord's Prayer" in high respect as the most potent weapon against Satan, and had a number of conjurations
against "evil spirits." Each community had its own twelve "apostles," and women could be raised to the rank of "elect." The
Bogomils wore garments like mendicant friars and were known as keen missionaries, travelling far and wide to propagate their doctrines. Healing the sick and exorcising the evil spirit, they traversed different countries and spread their
apocryphal literature along with some of the books of the Old Testament, deeply
influencing the religious spirit of the nations, and preparing them for the Reformation. They accepted the four Gospels, fourteen Epistles of
Paul, the three Epistles of John, James, Jude, and an Epistle to the Laodiceans, which they
professed to have. They sowed the seeds of a rich religious popular literature in the East as well as in the West. The
Historiated Bible, the Letter from Heaven, the
Wanderings through Heaven and Hell, the numerous Adam and Cross legends, the religious
poems of the "Kaliki perehozhie" and other similar productions owe their dissemination to
a large extent to the activity of the Bogomils of Bulgaria, and their successors in other lands.
History
According to Slavonic documents the founder of this sect was a
certain priest Bogumil, who "imbibed the Manichaean teaching
and flourished at the time of the Bulgarian emperor Peter" (927-968).
According to another source the founder was called Jeremiah
(or there was another priest associated with him by the name of
Jeremiah). This was the beginning of a revival of the sect, which
proved loyal to the empire.
The Slavonic sources are unanimous on the point that his teaching was Manichaean. A Synodikon from the year
1210 adds the names of his pupils or "apostles," Mihail, Todur, Dobri, Stefan, Vasilie and Peter.
Zealous missionaries carried their doctrines far and wide. In 1004, scarcely 25 years after the
introduction of Christianity into Kievan Rus, we hear of a priest Adrian teaching the same
doctrines as the Bogomils. He was imprisoned by Leontie, Bishop of Kyiv. In 1125 the Church in the south of Rus had to combat another heresiarch named Dmitri. The
Church in Bulgaria also tried to extirpate Bogomilism. Several thousand went in the army of Alexius Comnenus against the Norman, Robert Guiscard; but, deserting the emperor, many of them (1085) were
thrown into prison. Efforts were again put forth for their conversion; and for the converts the new city of Alexiopolis was built, opposite Philippopolis. When the Crusaders
took Constantinople (1204), they found some Paulicians, whom the historian Geoffrey of Villehardouin calls Popelicans. The popes in Rome whilst leading the
Crusade against the Albigenses did not forget their counterpart in the Balkans and
recommended the annihilation of the heretics.
The Bogomils spread westwards, and settled first in Serbia; but at the end of the 12th century
Stephen Nemanya, king of Serbia,
persecuted them and expelled them from the country. Large numbers took refuge in Bosnia, where they were known under the name of Patarenes or Patareni. There they were also
brought into connection with the indigenous Bosnian Church, which was also considered
heretical by the Pope and the Byzantium, but was not actually Bogomil in nature. 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. It is alleged that a
large number of the Bosnian Paterenes, and especially the nobles, embraced Islam.
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. See F Rački, "Bogomili i Paternai" in
Rad, vols. vii., viii. and x. (Agram, 1870); Dollinger, Beiträge zur Ketzergeschichte des
Mittelalters, 2 vols. (Munich, 1890).
In 970 the emperor John Tzimisces transplanted no less than 200,000 Armenian Paulicians to Europe and settled them in the
neighbourhood of Philippopolis in Trace. Under Turkish rule the Armenian Paulicians lived unmolested as Pavlikiani in their
ancient stronghold near Philippopolis, and farther northward. In 1650 the Roman Catholic Church gathered them into its fold. No less
than fourteen villages near Nicopolis embraced Catholicism, and a colony of Pavlikiani in the
village of Cioplea near Bucharest followed the example of
their brethren across the Danube.
In the 18th century the Pavlikiani people from around Nicopolis were persecuted by the
Turks, presumably on religious grounds, and a good part of them fled across the Danube into, what
is today, Romania. They settled in the Banat region that was
under the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time and became known as Banat Bulgarians. There are still over ten thousand Pavlikiani in Banat
today in the villages of Dudestii Vechi, Vinga,
Brestea and also in the city of Timisoara and a few in
Arad; however, they no longer practice their religion, having converted to
Roman Catholicism. There is also a village of Pavlikiani in the Serbian
Banat called Ivanovo.
Name
The name of the movement was bulgarus in Latin (meaning "Bulgarian") which included Paulicians, Cathars, Patarenes and
Albigenses. It became boulgre, later bougre in Old French meaning "heretic, traitor". It entered German as
Buger meaning "peasant, blockhead" (and went on to English as bugger) and the French term also entered old
Italian as bugero in the meaning of "sodomite" since it was supposed that
heretics would make sex (just like everything else) in an "inverse" way. The word went on towards Venetian Italian as buzerar, meaning "to do sodomy" (anal sex between men). This word entered German again
as Buserant and went on to Hungarian as buzeráns, becoming buzi
around the 1900s, which form is still in use as a sexual slur for male
homosexuals.
References
- Euthymius Zygadenus, Narratio de Bogomilis, ed. Gieseler (Göttingen, 1842)
- J. C. Wolf, Historia Bogomiorum (Wittenberg, 1712)
- "Slovo svyatago Kozmyi na eretiki," in Kukuljevit Sakcinski
- Arkiv zapovyestnicu jugoslavensku, vol. iv. pp. 69-97 (Agram, 1859)
- C. J. Jirniek, Geschichte d. Bulgaren, pp. 155, 174-175 (Prague, 1876)
- Korolev, "Dogmaticheskoto uchenie na Bogomiltie," in Periodichesko spisanie, vols.
vii.-viii. pp. 75-106 (Braila, 1873)
- Episcoptil Melchisedek, L'ipovenisnzul, pp. 265 sqq. (Bucharest, 187f)
- F. C. Conybeare, The Key of Truth, pp. 73 sqq. and specially
pp. 238 sqq. (Oxford, 1898).
See also
External links
This article incorporates text from the 1911
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