TheEuchites orMessalians were aChristian sect fromMesopotamia that spread toAsia Minor (modern-dayTurkey) andThrace. The name 'Messalian' comes from theSyriacܡܨܠܝܢܐ,mṣallyānā, meaning 'one who prays'.[1] The Greek translation isεὐχίτης,euchitēs, meaning the same.
They are first mentioned in the 370s byEphrem the Syrian,[2]Epiphanius of Salamis,[3] andJerome,[4][5] and are also mentioned by ArchbishopAtticus,Theodotus of Antioch, and ArchbishopSisinnius.[6] They were first condemned asheretical in asynod of 383 AD (Side,Pamphylia), whoseacta was referred to in the works ofPhotius.[7] Their leader was supposedly a man named Peter who claimed to beChrist.[8] Before beingstoned to death for his blasphemies, he promised his followers that after three days he would rise from his tomb in the shape of awolf, attracting the title ofLycopetrus orPeter the Wolf.[8] Christians believed it was not Peter who would come out of the grave, but adevil in disguise.[9]
They continued to exist for several centuries, influencing theBogomils of Bulgaria, who are calledLycopetrians in an abjuration formula of 1027.[10][8] and, thereby, theBosnian Church andCatharism.[11] By the 12th century thesect had reachedBohemia andGermany[citation needed] and, by a resolution of the Council of Trier (1231), was condemned as heretical.
Michael Psellos, aByzantine monk, accusedBogomils and Euchites oforgiastic practices,incest, andhomosexuality. Furthermore, he argued that children born from these promiscuous activities were brought before a Satanic assembly after eight days, offered up to Satan and thencannibalistically eaten. This cannibalistic act was supposedly a parody ofbaptism.Euthymios Zigabenos, a later Byzantine monastic writer, would make the same accusations. Such charges have a long history, and historians debate whether they are truthful to any degree: the idea of these unholy acts can be traced back further to alleged practices of certainGnostic sects; indeed, a similar literary tradition regarding heresies seems to have been brought into existence well before the Christian era, during the reign of theSeleucid rulerAntiochus IV Epiphanes.[12]
Modern scholarship has also questioned whether a coherent heretical movement existed behind these condemnations, and has emphasised instead the friction in theEastern Church caused by Messalianism's "ascetical practices and imagistic language far more characteristic ofSyriac Christianity than of theimperial Church centred on Constantinople".[13]
The sect's teaching asserted that:
Messalians taught that once a person experienced the essence of God they were freed from moral obligations or ecclesiastical discipline.[14][15] They had male and female teachers, the "perfecti", whom they honored more than the clergy. The condemnation of the sect byJohn Damascene andTimothy of Constantinople, expressed the view that the sect espoused a sort of mysticalmaterialism. Their critics also accused them ofincest, cannibalism and "debauchery" (inArmenia, their name came to mean "filthy")[16] but scholars reject these claims.[17]
Gelbert (2013, 2023) suggests that in theGinza Rabba (Right Ginza 9.1), theMandaic termminunaiia ("Mnunaeans" or "Minunaeans") is actually a reference to the Messalians or Euchites.[18][19]
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