The Bogomils began to emerge in the Balkan regions around 930 A.D. Particularly annoying to the church, the Bogomils supported a dualist view which was similar to Albigensians, and as they sent many of their people throughout the Byzantine empire, Italy, France and Western Europe, they are often blamed for contributing to the rise of Alibensianism later in history.
The Founder of the Bogomils
The name didn’t just fall out of the sky, the founder of the Bogomils was indeed a man by the name of Bogomil. It had the meaning, “Beloved of God” or “Worthy of God’s Pity” depending on the translation.
Bogomil, influenced by the Paulicians, taught a dualist doctrine. In his view, God had two sons. These sons were Christ and Satan. In his view, Satan was the God of the Old Testament and was responsible for the death of God’s other Son, Christ, on a Cross.
Bogomil believed that there was only one valid prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. He also held some of the controversial beliefs of the Albigensians such as the perception that true believers could not eat meat or drink wine. They lived a chaste life to the point of perceiving that marriage and procreation were to be avoided as lesser states of spiritual being.
They had no priesthood, so the Bogomil men and women confessed their sins to one another. The Bogomil religion was embraced primarily by the poor and the majority of the spreading of the religion seemed to come through the peasants.
The End of Bogomils
Two known Bogomil groups existed, the first was the Church of Dragovitsa named after a village. The members of this faction were profound dualists, and believed that Satan was a real equal in the hierarchy – equal to God. The Bulgars, an older version of the Bogomils, believed Satan to be God’s fallen bother. This belief was referred to as absolutism.
It was in the fifteenth century that the Bogomils would find their end, having been wiped out by the Ottoman Turks. Many Bogomils also embraced Islam, but the capture of Constantinople in 1453 ended organized Bogomilism although the ideas persisted and some of them re-emerged in later heresies and in folktales.
Heresy According to the Early Church Fathers
The Early Church Fathers found the Bogomils and other heretical groups like them to be a nuisance. It was hard to keep up with the many heresies cropping up every day. “[The heretics] taught them to both speak and do ungodly and blasphemous things. These persons are called by us after the name of the men from whom each doctrine and opinion had its origin,” according to A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers.
Other heretical groups of importance include the Beguines and the Cainites.
Sources:
- Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, by Charles S. Clifton.
- A Catholic Dictionary, by William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, M.A.
- Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott.
- A Short History of Christian Doctrine: From the First Century to the Present, by Bernhard Lohse.
- The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325 - 1870, by Philip Hughes.
- A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers, edited by David W. Bercot.
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