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Paulicianism (Classical Armenian: Պաւղիկեաններ,Pawłikeanner;Medieval Greek:Παυλικιανοί, "The followers of Paul";[1]Arab sources:Baylakānī,al Bayāliqaالبيالقة)[2] was aChristiansect which originated inArmenia in the 7th century.[3][4] Followers of the sect were calledPaulicians and referred to themselves asGood Christians. Little is known about the Paulician faith and various influences have been suggested, includingGnosticism,Marcionism,Manichaeism andAdoptionism,[5][6] with other scholars arguing that doctrinally the Paulicians were a largely conventional Christian reform movement unrelated to any of these currents.[7]
The founder of the Paulicians is traditionally held to have been an Armenian by the name ofConstantine,[8] who hailed from a Syrian community nearSamosata in modern-dayTurkey. The sect flourished between 650 and 872 around theByzantine Empire's frontier with the ArabCaliphate in Armenia andEastern Anatolia, despite intermittent persecutions and deportations by the imperial authorities inConstantinople.[1] After a period of relative toleration, renewed Byzantine persecution in the mid 9th century prompted the Paulicians to establish astate centered on Tephrike in the Armenian borderlands under Arab protection.[9]
After prolonged warfare, the state of Tephrike was destroyed by the Byzantines in the 870s. Over the next century, some Paulicians migrated further into Armenia, while others were relocated by the imperial authorities to the Empire's Balkan frontier inThrace. In Armenia, the Paulicians were assimilated into the related religious movement ofTondrakism over the next century.[10] In Thrace, the sect continued practicing their faith for some time, in some places until the 17th–18th centuries, before gradually converting to other religions and are considered to be the ancestors of the modernRoman CatholicBanat Bulgarians[9] and the MuslimPomaks.[11] The movement may have also been an influence on medieval European Christianheteredox movements such asBogomilism andCatharism.[5][9]
The Paulicians called themselves "Good Christians"[12] or "True Believers",[2] and referred toorthodox Christians as "Romanists".[13] The name 'Paulician' was used by outsiders to refer to the sect and literally means 'the followers of Paul'. The identity of the Paul for whom the movement was named is disputed.[5] It is most likely to bePaul the Apostle, a figure whom the Paulicians are consistently stated as according special veneration from the earliest sources up to their apparent extinction in the early modern period.[14][1][9] Certain medievalByzantine andMuslim sources associate the sect with the 3rd centuryBishop of Antioch,Paul of Samosata.[15][16] This may be a conflation with the separatePaulianist sect, however,[17] and the earliest Byzantine source to describe the movement explicitly distinguishes the "Paul of Samosata" supposed to have given the movement its name from the more famous heresiarch.[18] Another possible source is Paul the Armenian, an otherwise obscure Paulician figure said to have led the sect in its migration toEpisparis following its persecution byJustinian II at the close of the 7th century.[19]
The sources indicate that most Paulician leaders wereArmenians[20] and the founder of the sect is said to have been an Armenian by the name ofConstantine,[8] who hailed from Mananalis, a community nearSamosata. He studied theGospels andEpistles, combineddualistic and Christian doctrines and vigorously opposed theformalism of the church. Regarding himself as having been called to restore the pure Christianity ofPaul the Apostle, he adopted the name ofSilvanus (one of Paul's disciples), and about 660, he founded his first congregation at Kibossa,Armenia. Twenty-seven years later, he was arrested by the Imperial authorities, tried for heresy andstoned to death.[8][1] Simeon, the court official who executed the order, was himself converted, and adopting the name Titus, became Constantine's successor. He wasburned to death, the punishment pronounced upon theManichaeans, in 690.[1]
The adherents of the sect fled, with their new leader Paul at their head, to Episparis. He died in 715, leaving two sons, Gegnaesius (whom he had appointed his successor) and Theodore. The latter, giving out that he had received theHoly Ghost, protested against the leadership of Gegnaesius but was unsuccessful. Gegnaesius was taken toConstantinople, appeared before EmperorLeo III, was declared innocent of heresy and returned to Episparis, but, fearing danger, went with his adherents to Mananalis in Eastern Anatolia. His death (in 745) was the occasion of a division in the sect.
In 747, EmperorConstantine V is reported to have moved a significant number of Paulicians from Eastern Anatolia to Thrace to strengthen the Bulgarian frontier, beginning the presence of the sect in Europe.[21] Despite deportations and continued persecution the sect continued to grow, receiving additions from some of theiconoclasts.[1]
In the late eighth century, the Paulicians suffered a schism and split into two groupings; the Baanites (the old party) and the Sergites (the reformed sect).Sergius, the reformed leader, was a zealous and effective converter for his sect; he boasted that he had spread his Gospel "from East to West; from North to South".[22] Sergius succeeded in supplanting Baanes, the leader of the old party, by 801 and was active for the next thirty-four years. His activity was the occasion of renewed persecutions on the part ofLeo the Armenian. Upon the death of Sergius, the control of the sect was divided between several leaders.
In 843, the EmpressTheodora, as regent to her sonMichael III, instituted a major persecution against the Paulicians throughout Asia Minor[23] in which 100,000 adherents in Byzantine Armenia alone were said to have lost their lives or property.[24]
In response to the renewed persecution many Paulicians, under their new leaderKarbeas, fled across the border to the areas of Armenia under Arab control. Under the protection ofUmar al-Aqta, the Emir ofMelitene, the sect was permitted by the Arabs to build two fortress cities,Amara andTephrike, and establish an independent state.[25][26][27] Karbeas died in 863 duringMichael III's campaign against the Arabs and possibly was with Umar at Malakopea before theBattle of Lalakaon.
Karbeas's successor,Chrysocheres ('the goldenhand'), devastated many cities in the continued wars with the Byzantines; in 867, he advanced as far asEphesus, where he took many priests as prisoners.[28][29] In 868, EmperorBasil I dispatchedPetrus Siculus to arrange for their exchange. His sojourn of nine months among the Paulicians gave him an opportunity to collect many facts, which he preserved in hisHistory of the empty and vain heresy of the Manichæans, otherwise called Paulicians. The propositions of peace were not accepted, the war was renewed, and Chrysocheres was killed atBattle of Bathys Ryax in 872 or 878.
By 878, the emperorBasil I had conquered the Paulician strongholds in Asia Minor (including Tephrike) and the survivors from the destruction of the Paulician state were largely displaced.[30] One group migrated east further into Armenia, where they were assimilated into the emergingTondrakian sect throughout the 10th century.[10] Others were transferred to the Western frontier of the empire, including a military detachment of some 20,000 Paulicians serving in Byzantine Italy under the generalNikephoros Phokas the Elder.[10][30]
In 970, 200,000 Paulicians on Byzantine territory were reportedly transferred by the emperorJohn Tzimisces toPhilippopolis in Thrace.[30] As a reward for their promise to keep back "theScythians" (in factBulgars), the emperor granted the group toleration to practice their faith unmolested. This marked the start of a revival for the sect in the West.
The policy of transferring Paulicians to the West proved to be harmful for the Byzantines, with the group bringing limited economic and military benefits for the empire's Balkan frontier. The sect also failed to assimilate with the orthodoxRoman andBulgarian inhabitants and are reported to have successfully converted many existing inhabitants of Thrace to their heresy. According toAnna Komnene, by the end of 11th century Philippopolis and its surroundings were entirely inhabited by Paulicians and were being joined by new groups of Armenian migrants.[30]
According toAnnales Barenses, several thousand Paulicians served in the army of EmperorAlexios I Komnenos against the NormanRobert Guiscard in 1081 but subsequently deserted the emperor and were imprisoned.[10] TheAlexiad, written by the emperor's daughterAnna, reports that Alexios I succeeded in converting many of the sects around Philippopolis toChristian orthodoxy, building a new city of Alexiopolis for the converts.[1]
During theFirst Crusade some Paulicians, called "Publicani", were present in the Muslim armies although others were reported as assisting the Crusaders.[10] WhenFrederick Barbarossa passed near Philippopolis during theThird Crusade, on the contrary to the Greek inhabitants, they welcomed him as a liberator. In 1205, the Paulicians cooperated withKaloyan to surrender Philippopolis to theSecond Bulgarian Empire.[30]
According to the historian Yordan Ivanov, some of the remaining Thracian Paulicians converted toEastern Orthodox Christianity during the Second Bulgarian Empire. After the fall of the Bulgarian Empire and the conquest of Thrace by theOttoman Empire, this group then converted with some Bulgarians toIslam and became thePomak people.[9]
The remaining Thracian Paulicians who still practiced their original faith are said to have eventually converted toRoman Catholicism during the 16th or 17th century.[9][31] At the end of the 17th century, these Roman Catholic descendants of Paulicians were living aroundNikopol, Bulgaria, and suffered religious persecution by the Ottomans.[9] After the uprising ofChiprovtsi in 1688, a large number of this group fled across the Danube, settled in theBanat region and became known asBanat Bulgarians. After Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman rule in 1878, a number of these Banat Bulgarians resettled in the northern part ofBulgaria.
InArmenia, after theRusso-Turkish War of 1828–1829, communities whose practices were believed to be influenced by the Paulicians or Tondrakians could still be found in the part ofArmenia controlled by Russia. Documents of their professions of faith and disputations with theGregorian bishop about 1837 were later published byFrederick Cornwallis Conybeare.[1]
The Paulicians self-identified as Christians, but much about the nature of their beliefs is disputed. Their beliefs prompted Christian critics to brand them asJews,Muslims, andManichaeans but it is likely that their opponents employed these as pejorative appellations meant as terms of abuse, rather than as an accurate reflection of their beliefs.[32] Examples of the disputed doctrines of the Paulicians include debate as to how they perceived the nature of God, the nature of Christ, and debate surrounding their worship rituals.
There are few sources for the beliefs of the Paulicians except for the reports of opponents and some Paulician material preserved in theHistory of the Paulician Heresy byPetrus Siculus, comprising certain letters ascribed toSergius-Tychicus and, seemingly, a reworking of an account of their history composed by the Paulicians themselves.[33] For some scholars, another major source isThe Key of Truth, a text claimed to be a manual of the medieval Paulician orTondrakian church in Armenia. This text was first identified by Armenian ecclesiastical authorities in 1837 while tracing a group of dissidents led by Hovhannes Vartabedian;[34] British Orientalist Frederick Conybeare published a translation and edition of it in 1898.[35][36] The manuscript transmission of theKey is traced to the late 18th century, leading historians to raise doubts over its background, with some suggesting that its composition was influenced byProtestant missionary activity in Armenia at that time.[34][37]
Some scholars argue that the Paulician belief system wasdualistic,[38] a cosmological system of twin, opposing deities; an Evildemiurge who is author and lord of the present visible world; and a Good Spirit who is the God of the future world.[5][16] Dualist cosmologies were professed by the Near EasternManichaean faith, as well asearly Christian sects such as theMarcionists, and the sect's identification with dualism led the Paulicians to be traditionally labeled as Manichaeans and Marcionists by critics and scholars.[10][39]
Eighteenth century scholarJohann Lorenz von Mosheim criticised the identification of Paulicians as Manichaeans, and although he agreed both sects were dualistic, he argued that the Paulicians differed on several points and undoubtedly rejected the doctrine of theprophet Mani.[10]Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler andAugust Neander saw the sect as deriving from Marcionism, considering them as descendants of a dualistic sect reformed to become closer toproto-orthodox Early Christianity yet unable to be freed fromGnosticism.[10] By the mid-19th century the mainstream scholarly theory was that the sect was a non-Manichaean, dualistic Gnostic doctrine with substantial elements of Early Christianity closest to Marcionism, although others disputed this.[10] Frederick Conybeare asserted 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".[40]
The reports of Catholic missionaries working among the remaining Paulicians in the Balkans during the 16th–18th centuries do not reference dualist beliefs.[41]
Paulicians may have held several unorthodox beliefs about Jesus, includingnontrinitarianism (the belief that Jesus was not coeternal, coequal and indivisibly united in one being with God the Father and the Holy Spirit) anddocetism (the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion). Nontrinitarian beliefs were held byArian Christians and many early Christian sects such as theAdoptionists. The identification with nontrinitarianism sometimes led the Paulicians to be labeled as Arians by critics[32] and Adoptionists by scholars.[3][10]
Frederick Conybeare, in his edition ofThe Key of Truth, concluded that "The wordTrinity is nowhere used, and was almost certainly rejected as being unscriptural" and that Paulicians believed that Christ came down from heaven to emancipate humans from the body and from the world.[42] Conybeare also asserted that the movement were survivors of earlyAdoptionist Christianity in Armenia rather than dualist or Gnostic sects. Conybeare's theory, part of a broader argument that Adoptionism represented the original form of Christianity that had subsequently been suppressed by the Catholic Church, met a skeptical reception at the time.[43] In the 1960s, however,Nina Garsoïan, in a comprehensive study of both Greek and Armenian sources, argued in support of a link to Adoptionism, and asserted that Paulicianism independently developed features of docetism and dualism.[44]
In a paper presented to the Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference in 2022, Atlanta Bible College adjunct professor Sean Finnegan argued that the Armenian sect which producedThe Key of Truth, while nontrinitarian, did not hold an Adoptionist Christology. Evidence against an Adoptionist Christology includes an affirmation of the virgin birth in chapter 23 ofThe Key of Truth, as well as the use of the phrase "only-born" inThe Key of Truth chapters 2, 17, 21, and 22.[45][46]
The Paulicians were said to have used a different canon of sacred texts from the orthodox Christian bible. Byzantine scholars claimed that the sect accepted the fourGospels (especiallyof Luke);[5] fourteenEpistles of Paul; the threeEpistles of John; the epistles ofJames andJude; and anEpistle to the Laodiceans, which they professed to have. On the Byzantine account, the Paulicians rejected theFirst Epistle of Peter and the wholeTanakh,[5] also known as the Hebrew Bible orOld Testament.
In common with theNestorians, the Paulicians were said to have rejected the titleTheotokos ("Mother of God") forMary and refused all veneration of her.[16] The sect's places of worship were apparently called "places of prayer" and were small rooms in modest houses and, despite their potential ascetic tendencies, made no distinction in foods and practiced marriage.[9] Due to supposediconoclasm it was asserted that the sect rejected theChristian cross,rites,sacraments, the worship, and the hierarchy of the established Church,[5][9] because of whichEdward Gibbon considered them as "worthy precursors ofReformation".[10] Some historians have also viewed them as proto-protestants.[47]
In the putatively Paulician or Tondrakian workThe Key of Truth, copied in the 18th century, the Old Testament, Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist are all accepted.[48] Early modern Catholic reports of the Paulicians remaining in the Balkans claimed that they were iconoclasts, rejecting the veneration of images and the Cross, that they used fire rather than water in baptism, and that they had a relatively simple conception of priesthood. The practice of baptism by fire by Paulicians in the region before their conversion to Catholicism is corroborated by the contemporary English diplomatPaul Rycaut.[41]
In the 1940s, Soviet scholars saw the sect primarily as a product ofproletarian revolt which found expression through a theological movement. Garsoïan agreed that this assertion is supported by both Greek and Armenian sources, but held it only a limited description of the sect.[10][49]
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