Paulician

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The Paulikians , also Paulizians or Paulicianser , were a Christian heretical movement that developed in the course of the 7th century in the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Orthodox and the Armenian Apostolic Church . In church history it was first mentioned in 719 at the Synod of Dvin . According to descriptions by Petros Sikeliotes and Photios from the 9th century, it was a likely dualistic sect that rejected the Old Testament , parts of the New Testament , religious cult, worship of images and relics , church ceremonies and hierarchies . According to (discrediting) church traditions, the Christology of the Paulikians is said to have had Gnostic features. They rejected the depiction of the crucified Jesus Christ as a symbol of Christianity, because for them the crucifix was a deifying image of the Christian prophet.

Origin and distribution in Asia Minor

The Paulician doctrine of the faith originated in Asia Minor , in Armeniakon , from where it spread through the eastern themes of the Byzantine Empire . Constantine von Mananalis , who came from Syria , founded the first communities in the middle of the 7th century in the area around Kibossa in what is now northeastern Turkey . In order to deceive persecutors, he used various names, for example "Silvanus" after a disciple of the apostle Paul . His followers, who called themselves “Christians”, were disparagingly referred to as “Paulicians” by their opponents and the influential clergy, since they are said to have appealed to Paul of Tarsus and Paul of Samosata in questions of faith . In addition to the four Gospels and traditions of early Christianity , the Paulikians saw in their doctrine of the faith especially the Pauline letters as the most important message of the Holy Scriptures. They venerated Jesus as a prophet sent by God, but are said to have rejected his equation with God and any cult of Mary .

Constantine of Mananalis and Simeon-Titus are considered to be the most important apostles of Paulicanism . According to legend, Simeon-Titus suffered the martyr's death around 694 by burning at the place marked by a stone dump where Constantine of Mananalis had been stoned to death ten years earlier. In the parishes of the Paulicians the work and the community active help were highly regarded. According to their beliefs, the work was decisive for the social status of people. Their belief, which established the social equality of people as the basis of the Christian community, was associated with the rejection of the clergy , church organization and religious cult activities. Correspondingly irreconcilable from the beginning was the attitude of the Eastern Roman church and aristocracy , who fought against the spread of this religious community with all means and initiated pogroms to destroy it with military support . Nevertheless, the teachings of the Paulikians initially spread peacefully among the peasant population of Asia Minor, whose village communities emerged stronger at the beginning of the 8th century from the new thematic order and the spreading defensive peasantry.

During the period of the iconoclasm 726-843, the Paulikians supported the thematic nobility and the iconoclasting emperor of the Syrian dynasty , Leo III. (717–741) and Constantine V (741–775), in their debates with the church and the urban upper class. The parishes of the Paulikians thereby also gained political weight and an increasing following.

Militarization and Extinction

The economic and political pressure emanating from Constantinople on the village communities towards the end of the iconoclastic dispute led to the fact that the originally strictly pacifist Paulicanism took on increasingly militant traits and went over to establishing a state of its own. In particular, under Emperor Michael I from 811 to 813 and from 820 under the rulers of the Amorian dynasty , the Paulikians were subject to looting and persecution as part of military campaigns. The implacable hostility of the amoric imperial family was primarily justified in terms of power politics and had less to do with the still smoldering picture controversy or deviating religious ideas. It developed when, in 820, Thomas the Slav, with the approval and support of the Paulicians, seized power in the east of the empire and led an uprising against Emperor Michael II to the walls of Constantinople.

The extermination of the Paulikians under Empress Theodora, from the Skylitzes Chronicle.

When Theodora II finally ordered the extermination of the Paulikians in 843 and more than 100,000 followers fell victim to mass executions, the Paulikians rallied under the military leader Karbeas , who proclaimed Tephrike, today's Divriği , to be the center of the Paulikian state and the caliph of Baghdad as protecting power recognized. Campaigns by the Byzantine emperors were repulsed and responded to with counter-attacks that led the Paulikian troops to the shores of the Aegean . In alliance with Omar al-Aqta, the Emir of Melitene , the Paulikians ruled the Armeniakon with Karbeas as counter-emperor . Starting from their center of power in western Armenia around Tephrike, they threatened, together with the allied Arabs, to gain sovereignty over the whole of Anatolicon . By winning the Battle of Lalakaon , which Karbeas did not survive, the Byzantines prevented the Paulikian-Arab conquest of Anatolicon in 863. Finally, in 872, Emperor Basil I succeeded in destroying the Paulicians. The Paulician army had victoriously ended a campaign against Ephesus under John Chrysocheir and returned to Tephrike with rich booty when the Byzantines struck surprisingly at Bathys Ryax in the Taurus Mountains . According to legend, none of the Paulician army survived the battle. Without an army and their military leader, Chrysocheires, the downfall of the Paulicians was inevitable. In 872 or 878 Tephrike fell, the capital and last bastion of the Paulicians. The Paulician congregations were smashed. The surviving followers had to renounce their beliefs and many were forcibly relocated to other areas of the Byzantine Empire.

successor

Some of the Paulikians were exiled to Thrace , whereby their doctrine of the faith spread in the Balkans and was partly absorbed in Bogomilism .

Theories on the spread of Paulizianism

In the 10th and 11th centuries they were in their iconoclasm with the Tondrakiern connected, one to the north of Lake Van incurred heretical movement. It is also striking that in Central Anatolia social and religious ideas of the Paulicians, in conjunction with Muslim (especially Sufi and Shiite ) influences in Alevism persist revived and today.

In conspiracy theories, the line Gnostics - Manicheans - Paulikians - Bogomils - Cathars - Waldensians - Protestants is often asserted, which was already adopted by the respective contemporaries with regard to individual connections. According to a report by Petros Sikeliotes , who lived with them from 868-869, the Paulikians rejected Mani's writings and their founder, Constantine, took over Marcion's Gospel and Pauline letter collection from a deacon of the Markionite Church in Syria.

The Bogomils are largely independent, even if only shortly after the Paulician resettlement. As far as there has been contact between the groups, they are limited to the adoption of individual writings. To accept an opposing church that has preserved personal tradition beyond the boundaries of the individual sects is pure speculation.

literature

  • Nikoghayos Adontz: Samuel l'Armenien, Roi des Bulgares . Palais des Academies, Brussels 1938, p. 63.
  • RM Bartikian: Sources for studying the history of the Paulikian movement ; Yerevan 1961 (in Armenian).
  • Frederic G. Conybeare (Ed.): The Key of Thruth. A manual of Paulician Church of Armenia . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1898.
  • Seta B. Dadoyan: The Fatimid Armenians. Cultural and Political Interaction in the Near East (Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts: Vol. 18). Brill Publ., Leiden 1997, p. 214, ISBN 90-04-10816-5 .
  • Nina G. Garsoïan: The Paulician Heresy. The study of the origin and development of Paulicianism in Armenia and the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire . Mouton, The Hague 1967, p. 233.
  • Nina G. Garsoïan: Armenia between Byzantium and the Sasanians . Variorum Reprints, London 1985, p. 340, ISBN 0-86078-166-6 .
  • Johann Jakob Herzog : Paulicians . In: Philip Schaff (Ed.): A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology , Vol. 2 . 2nd ed. Funk & Wagnalls, New York 1894, pp. 1776–1777.
  • Vahan M. Kurkjian: The Paulikians and the Tondrakians (Chapter 37). In: Ders .: A History of Armenia . AGBUA, New York 1959 p. 526.
  • Alexandre Lombard: Pauliciens, Bulgares et Bons-hommes. Étude sur quelquels sectes du moyen âge . Edition H. Georg, Geneva 1879.
  • Vrej Nersessian: The Tondrakian Movement. Religious movements in the Armenian Church from the 4th to the 10th century (Princeton Theological Monograph Series; Vol. 15). Pickwick Publ., Allison Park, Pa 1988, ISBN 0-915138-99-9 .
  • Édouard Selian: Le dialect Paulicien . In: Dora Sakayan (Ed.): The Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Armenian Linguistics (Anatolian and Caucasian Studies). Caravan Books, New York 1996, ISBN 0-88206-085-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ different spelling: Nicolajos Adonç.

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