Bogomilism ( ) is the
Gnostic dualistic sect, the synthesis of Armenian
Paulicianism and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church reform
movement, which emerged in Bulgaria between 927 and 970 and
spread into Byzantine Empire,
Kievan Rus', Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy and France.
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 of Byzantine
church
. In spite of all measures of repression, it
remained strong and popular until the fall of Bulgaria
in the end
of the 14th century.
Bogomilism is the first significant Bulgarian heresy that came
about in the first quarter of the 10th century. The term "Bogomil"
means "Dear to God" in Bulgarian. Bogomilism was a natural outcome
of many factors that had arisen till the beginning of 10th century.
The forced Christianization of the Slavs and proto-Bulgarians by
Tsar Boris I in 863 and the fact
that the religion was initially practised in Greek, which only the
elite knew, resulted in a very superficial level of understanding
of the religion, if any understanding at all. Another very
important factor was the social discontent of the peasantry. Due to
the constant wars during the time of the father of
Tsar Peter I of Bulgaria, Simeon I, the
lands near the Greek border (Thrace) were devastated, and the
people living there were left without occupation. Moreover, the
change of authority over these lands resulted in the unstable
status of the peasantry. In short, the ones that struggled the most
because of the strife for land were the peasants of
Thrace. At the time of Tsar Peter I of Bulgaria, they
were also subject to higher taxes, which was devastating for them.
All these factors contributed to the general discontent of the
peasantry at the beginning of the 10th century. Moreover, the
church was very corrupt, and the ones trying to find comfort in it
were very disappointed and failed to find consolation. Another
factor was the existence of older Christian heresies in the
Bulgarian lands. The most influential among those were
Manichaeism and
Paulicianism, which were considered very
dualistic.
Manichaeism’s origin is related to
Zoroastrianism; that is why Bogomilism is
sometimes indirectly connected to
Zoroastrianism in the sense of its duality.
The social discontent of the peasantry and the presence of the old
Christian heresies created a new Christian heresy under the name of
Bogomilism.
It is difficult to ascertain whether the name was taken from the
reputed founder of that movement, priest
Bogumil or Bogomil, (
Bulgarian поп Богомил where 'поп' [pop]
means priest – father – and his name Богомил translates as "dear to
god") 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 Presbyter Cosmas, a 10th
century Bulgarian official. 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
Kievan Rus' 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
Rus and among all the nations of
Europe. In the 12th and 13th century, the
Bogomils were already known in the West as "Bulgari", i.e.
Bulgarians (българи). In 1207 the
Bulgarorum heresis is
mentioned. In 1223 the
Albigenses are
declared to be the local Bougres, and in the same period mention is
made of the "Pope of the Albigenses who resided within the confines
of Bulgaria" (see also
Nicetas,
Bogomil bishop). 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 is 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. They
rejected the Christianity of the orthodox churches and did not
accept the
docetic teaching of some of the
other sects.
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. It is tradition to believe that the
Bogomils taught that 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. Scholars agree on that
Bogomils refused to fast on Mondays and Fridays, and that they
rejected
monasticism. It is also held
that 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 physically 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 Pauline 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, popular religious literature in the
East as well as 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.
The essence of Bogomilism is the duality in the creation of the
world. This is exactly why it is considered a heresy. Bogomils
explained the earthly sinful corporeal life as a creation of Satan,
an angel that was sent to
the Earth. Due
to this duality, their doctrine rejects everything that is socially
created and that does not come from the soul, the only divine
possession of the human. Therefore, the established
Church,
the
state, and the
hierarchy is totally
undermined by Bogomilism. Its followers refuse to pay taxes, to
work in serfdom, or to fight for their state. The whole social
system is overthrown, which on its part were understood as
suggesting disorder and propels destructivity for the state, the
church by its progenitors, that ultimately eradicated the
bogomils.
History
Our best source for the Bogomils is the
Panoply of
Euthymius Zigabenus, who
conducted trials of Bogomils for
Alexius I Comnenus.
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 Leontius, Bishop of Kiev
. 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
Alexios I Komnenos
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
Legend of Saint Gerard
discloses that followers of Bulgarian Bogomilism were present
during the early 11th century in
Ahtum's
realm, which comprised present day
Banat. They
invoked
Archangel Uriel, whose name is common in
amulets and magic
rituals.
The
Bogomils spread westwards and settled first in Serbia
; but at the
end of the 12th century Stefan
Nemanja, king of
Serbia, burned them, 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 Byzantines, 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 I Tzimiskes
transplanted no less than 200,000 Armenian Paulicians to Europe and
settled them in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis (today's
Plovdiv
in Thrace).Under Turkish 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. In 1650, the
Roman Catholic Church gathered them
into its fold.
No less than fourteen villages near Nicopolis
, in Moesia, embraced
Catholicism, as well as the villages around Philippopolis.
A colony
of Paulicians in the Wallachian village of Cioplea near Bucharest
also followed the example of their brethren across
the Danube.
In the
18th century, the Paulician people from around Nicopolis were persecuted by the Turks, presumably on
religious grounds, and a good part of them fled across the Danube and settled in the Banat
region that was part of the Austrian
Empire at the time, and became known as Banat Bulgarians. 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 Timişoara
, with a few in Arad
; however,
they no longer practice their religion, 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
.
In modern and popular culture
In
Foucault's Pendulum,
a novel by the
Italian writer and
philosopher
Umberto Eco, the plot
concerning a widespread secret and mystic conspiracy has its ground
in the disappearance of the Bogomils after the fall of the
Second Bulgarian Empire under the
rule of the
Ottoman Empire.
The Secret
Book is a Macedonian
feature film combining
the detective, thriller and conspiracy fiction genres, based on
fictional story of the quest for the original Slavic language
"Secret Book", written by the Bogomils in Bulgaria and carried to
Western Europe during the Middle Ages.
An English profanity and the name of a crime emerged from reports
of the Bogomils by the Catholic Church. The words "
bugger" and "
buggery" emerged,
by way of the word "bougre" in French, from "
Bulgar" (Bulgarian), which was understood to mean
the
Bogomils, who were believed to be
devoted to the practice of
sodomy. "Buggery"
first appears in English in 1330, though "bugger" in a sexual sense
is not recorded until 1555.
References
- OED 1st edn
Sources
- J. C.
Wolf, Historia Bogomilorum (Wittenberg,
1712)
- Euthymius Zygabenus,
Narratio de Bogomilis, ed. Gieseler (Göttingen, 1842)
- C. J.
Jirecek, Geschichte d. Bulgaren
(Prague, 1876), S. 155, 174-175
- L. P. Brockett,
The Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia: The Early Protestants of the
East (s.l., 1879) [24289]
- V. Sharenkoff, A Study of Manicheism in Bulgaria (New York,
1927).
- D. Obolensky, The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan
Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge, 1948), reprint New York, 1978
- S. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the
Christian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge, 1947)
- K. Papasov,
Christen oder Ketzer - die Bogomilen (Stuttgart, 1983)
- D. Angelov,
Bogomilstvoto (Stara Zagora, 1995)
- J. Meiers,
Archbishop Ancient Order of Bogomil, of Americas'.
- J. Ivanov,
Bogomilski knigi i legendi (Sofija, 1925). French translation by M.
Ribeyrol, Livres et Légendes bogomiles (Paris, 1976).
See also
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