Paulicians - Reference Center

Columbia Encyclopedia entry: Paulicians

Paulicianspôlĭsh'ənz, Christian heretical sect. The sect developed in Armenia from obscure origins and is first mentioned in the middle of the 6th cent., where it is associated with Nestorianism. The teachings of the Paulicians seem to show some gnostic influence, possibly that of Marcion or Paul of Samosata, and many of the adherents leaned toward adoptionism. The sect especially valued the Gospel of Luke and the Pauline Epistles. They rejected the sacraments but nevertheless considered baptism of the greatest importance. They were iconoclasts and rejected extreme asceticism. By the 7th cent. the sect spread to the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire, where it met with strong persecution. The Council of Dvin (719) brought on new persecutions of the Paulicians in Armenia, but the permissive Isaurian emperors allowed them to flourish and even settled them as allies in Thrace. Renewed persecution caused them to side with the Muslims against Byzantium. By 844, at the height of its power, the sect established a Paulician state at Tephrike (present-day Divriğu, Turkey) under the leadership of Karbeas, or Corbeas. In 871 the Byzantine emperor Basil I ended the power of this state and the survivors fled to Syria and Armenia. In 970 the Paulicians in Syria were deported to the Balkans, where they combined with the Bogomils. Those in Armenia became identified with a minor sect, the Tondrakeci. They ceased to be a threat after the 11th cent. and did not survive to modern times.

See N. G. Garsoïan, The Paulician Heresy (1968).

Wikipedia search results for: Paulicianism

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Paulicians (redirected from Paulicians) were an Adoptionist group, also accused by medieval sources as Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian. They flourished between 650 and 872 in Armenia and the Eastern Themes of the Byzantine Empire. According to medieval Byzantine sources, the group's name was derived after the third century Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata. Melk-Bakhshyan, Stepan. «Պավլիկյան շարժում». Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. vol. ix. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1983, pp. 140-141. The founder of the sect is said to have been an Armenian by the name of Constantine, who hailed from Mananalis, a community near Samosata. He studied the...more »

Columbia Encyclopedia search results: Paulicians

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Bogomils
Bogomils, members of Europe's first great dualist church, which flourished in Bulgaria and the Balkans from the 10th to the 15th cent. Their creed, adapted from the Paulicians and modified by ...
Michael III, Byzantine emperor
Michael III (Michael the Amorian or Phrygian), 836–67, Byzantine emperor (842–67), son and successor of Theophilus and grandson of Michael II. His minority saw the final overthrow of iconoclas...
Paul of Samosata
Paul of Samosata, fl. 260–72, Syrian Christian theologian, heretical patriarch of Antioch. He was a friend and high official of Zenobia of Palmyra. Paul enounced a dynamic monarchianism, denyi...
Plovdiv
Plovdiv, anc. Philippopolis, city (1993 pop. 345,205), S central Bulgaria, on the Maritsa River. It is the second largest city of Bulgaria, a transportation hub, and the chief market for a fer...
iconoclasm
Iconoclasm [Gr.,=image breaking], opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine, and biblical events was an early...

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