Bogomilism was a religious group that started in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century. A priest named Bogomil founded it during the rule of Tsar Peter I. The group likely began in the area of Kutmichevitsa, which is now part of the region of Macedonia.

The Bogomils believed in two separate worlds: one inside the body and one outside the body. They did not use the Christian cross or build churches because they believed their bodies were sacred and acted as temples. Instead, they practiced activities like fasting or dancing to purify their bodies.

The Bogomils did not follow the church’s leadership structure. They opposed both government and church leaders. This resistance helped their movement grow quickly across the Balkans. Over time, it spread to other areas, including the Byzantine Empire, Kievan Rus', Dalmatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Italy, and France, where a similar group called the Cathars existed.

Etymology

The word "Bogomil" means "dear to God" and is made up of two Slavic words: "bog" (meaning "god") and "mil" (meaning "dear"). It may also be a translation of the Greek name Theophilos, which means "loved by the gods" and comes from the Greek words "theos" (god) and "philos" (loved). It is hard to know whether the name was given to the movement by its founder, a priest named Bogomil, or if he chose the name later. The Bogomils are the same as the Messalians, as shown in Greek and Slavonic writings from the 12th to 14th centuries.

Members of the group were called "Babuni" in Church Slavonic texts, which originally meant "superstition" or "a superstitious person." Names of places that still use this term include the river Babuna, the mountain Babuna, the Bogomila Waterfall, and the village Bogomila. These are all located in the Azot region, now in central North Macedonia, showing that the movement was active there.

History

One of the earliest Christian groups that believed in two gods, called Marcionism, began in Armenia, which is now part of modern-day Turkey. The church that Marcion started seemed to disappear by the 5th century, but some ideas from Marcionism may have remained in a later group called Paulicianism, which also existed in the same area. Paulicianism started in the middle of the 7th century when a man named Constantine of Mananalis taught that there were two gods: one good god who created human souls and one evil god who made the physical world, including human bodies. His followers, called Paulicians, did not live very differently from others around them, even though they believed the world was evil. They were also known for being skilled fighters.

It is unclear if the Paulicians truly believed in two gods, as one text called The Key of Truth stated: "The Paulicians are not dualists in any other way than the New Testament is itself dualistic. Satan is simply the enemy of humans and God."

In 970, the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes moved 200,000 Armenian Paulicians to Europe and settled them near a city called Philippopolis (now Plovdiv, Bulgaria). Under Byzantine and later Ottoman rule, the Paulicians lived safely in their homes near Philippopolis and in areas farther north. Over time, they became linguistically similar to the Bulgarians, who called them pavlikiani (a Greek word for Paulician). In 1650, the Roman Catholic Church brought them into its community. Fourteen villages near Nicopolis in Moesia and areas around Philippopolis accepted Catholicism. A group of Paulicians in the Wallachian village of Cioplea near Bucharest also followed this path.

This religious and social movement, called Bogomilism, began during the reign of Peter I of Bulgaria (927–969). It was a response to pressure from rulers and church leaders in the Byzantine Empire. Despite efforts to stop it, Bogomilism remained popular until the end of the 14th century. Bogomilism likely started in Macedonia around the 10th century and was influenced by the Paulicians who had been moved from Armenia.

Slavic farmers in parts of Bulgaria were among the first to learn about Bogomilism. The young Bulgarian church recognized the danger of this belief. Pope Nicholas I warned the Bulgarian ruler Boris I about false teachings but did not specifically mention heresy. Bogomilism became widespread in the 10th century, and Theophylact of Constantinople warned Peter I about this new belief. The Bogomils spread to Serbia, where they were called Babuns. By the late 12th century, Serbian leaders declared Bogomilism a heresy and forced the group to leave the country. Many of them, mostly from a group called the Vlachs, found refuge in Bosnia and Dalmatia, where they were known as Patarenes. Many decorated tombstones from this time, called necropolises, have been found in the Balkans, showing the artistic and historical importance of this region. Most of these tombstones belonged to Bogomil Vlachs.

During the time of Samuel, Bogomilism spread into Serbia and Bosnia. The most active area was western Bosnia, centered on the Bosna River valley. In the region of Hum (modern-day Herzegovina), Bogomils were also strong. In cities like Split and Trogir, Bogomils were common, but later they moved to Bosnia. Hungarian rulers used the presence of Bogomils, who were labeled heretics, as a reason to launch crusades against Bosnia and expand their influence. In 1203, the Bosnian ruler Ban Kulin publicly renounced heresy, which stopped a first Hungarian complaint to the Pope. A second Hungarian crusade in 1225 failed. In 1254, the Bosnian Church refused to accept a Hungarian bishop, leading to a split from the Roman Catholic Church. Over time, the Bosnian Church and Bogomilism became linked, even though no clear evidence of Bogomilism or dualism was found in original Bosnian church records.

In 1203, Pope Innocent III, with help from the King of Hungary, forced Ban Kulin to accept Papal authority, but this agreement was not followed. After Kulin’s death in 1216, a mission to convert Bosnia to Catholicism failed. In 1234, the Catholic bishop of Bosnia was removed by Pope Gregory IX for allowing heretical practices. Gregory also asked the Hungarian king to launch a crusade against the heretics. In 1234, Prince Coloman of Slavonia led a crusade into Bosnia, but Bosnian nobles drove the Hungarians out.

In 1252, Pope Innocent IV placed the bishop of Bosnia under the control of the Hungarian Kalocsa Archbishopry. This decision caused the Bosnian Christians to break away from Rome, creating an independent Bosnian Church. Some later believed this church was linked to Bogomilism or the Cathar Church, but no evidence of these beliefs was found in original Bosnian church documents.

In 1291, Pope Nicholas issued a bull called Prae cunctis, which started a Dominican-led inquisition in Bosnia. The inquisition reported the existence of a dualist group in Bosnia in the late 15th century, calling them "Bosnian heretics," but this group was likely not the same as the Bosnian Church.

Bogomilism was wiped out in Bulgaria, Rascia (a medieval Serbian state), and Byzantium by the 13th century, though some small groups remained in Hum (modern-day Herzegovina) and Bosnia until the

Doctrine

From the limited and sometimes unclear information available, three possible ideas have been suggested about the beliefs of the Bogomils: they may have followed ideas similar to those of the Gnostics, the Adoptionists, or the Dualists.

The Bogomils believed in a type of dualism that was not extreme at first. They taught that God created the spiritual part of the world and ruled over it, while Satan created the material part. However, they believed Satan was not equal to God, as Satan was God's son. Over time, the Bogomils' beliefs changed, and they began to think of God and Satan as two equal and eternal forces, like some other groups, such as the Cathars.

The Bogomils' Adoptionist beliefs were influenced by a man named Paul of Samosata. They rejected the teachings of the Orthodox Christian churches but did not believe in the idea that Jesus only seemed to be human, as some other groups did. They also opposed the church and government, similar to some later groups that believed in Christian anarchism.

In a text called The Secret Supper, the Bogomils wrote that Jesus called God his father and that Mary became pregnant with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Some sources claim the Bogomils believed that John the Baptist was connected to Satan, as written in The Book of Boril. However, some people argue these claims are not true because many sources that describe the Bogomils were written by people who did not like them.

Some writings that may have been used by the Bogomils include:
– The Story of the Cross-tree and The Prayer Against Fever by a priest named Jeremiah
– The Book of the Secret Supper, which was incorrectly compared to another text called The Apocryphon of John
– The Vision of Isaiah, as described by a man named Euthymius Zigabenus

The Bogomils believed in the four Gospels, the fourteen letters from Paul, the three letters from John, and other books like The Letter to the Laodiceans. They helped spread religious writings in both the East and West, such as The Historiated Bible, The Letter from Heaven, and stories about Adam and the Cross. They also used many apocryphal books, like The Apocalypse of Abraham and The Vision of Isaiah.

According to the Bogomils' early beliefs, God had two sons: Satanail and Michael. Satanail rebelled against God and created the Earth and the lower heavens. He tried to make humans but needed God's help to create the Spirit. Adam was allowed to live on Earth only if he and his descendants became the property of Satanail. To save Adam and his family, Michael came to Earth as a man, identified with Jesus. After being baptized, Jesus was chosen by God. When the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove, Jesus broke the agreement between Adam and Satanail, which was written on a clay tablet. This made Michael, now in human form, defeat Satanail and remove the word "God" from his name. Satanail then became Satan. However, Satan caused Jesus to be crucified and created the Orthodox Church with its rituals, priests, and traditions. The Bogomils believed that the world was made by Satan and that people should avoid worldly pleasures, though not to the point of extreme asceticism.

The Bogomils believed the "Lord's Prayer" was a powerful tool to fight Satan. They had many ways to protect people from evil spirits. Each group had twelve spiritual leaders, and women could become part of their spiritual community. The Bogomils wore simple clothing like monks and traveled to spread their beliefs. They helped sick people and taught others about their ideas. They used some Old Testament books and spread their own writings, which influenced religious ideas before the Reformation.

The Bogomils did not believe the "Logos" was God's second person in the Trinity, but rather the spoken word of God, as taught by Jesus. Though they called themselves "Trinitarian," the Catholic Church accused them of rejecting the Trinity. In The Secret Supper, the text begins with: "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen."

The Catholic Church considered Bogomilism a heresy because the Bogomils believed the physical world was made by Satan, an angel sent to Earth. In the 14th century, a man named Karp Strigolnik taught that the Bogomils believed people should learn from each other rather than from priests. They did not use churches for worship and instead prayed in homes. They did not fast on certain days or live in monasteries. They believed Christ was the Son of God only through grace, like other prophets, and that the bread and wine in the Eucharist were not turned into flesh and blood. They believed God, not Jesus, would judge people in the end. They saw religious images and the cross as idols and believed honoring saints or relics was wrong.

These ideas influenced later religious groups in Russia and the Balkans. The Bogomils used apocryphal stories, and some of their writings were attributed to figures like Jeremiah or Bogumil, who were said to have written forbidden books. These books were similar to older apocryphal texts but were changed to support the Bogomils' beliefs.

The Bogomils' simple and clear explanation of the world's creation, the origin of sin, the history of the Cross, and the conflict between good and evil, heaven and hell, was widely shared.

Legacy

The Bogomils were a link between Eastern and Western religious groups that were considered wrong by the church. They were very active in spreading these beliefs in Kievan Rus and other European kingdoms. In the 12th and 13th centuries, people in the West called them "Cathars" or "Bulgari," meaning Bulgarians. In 1207, the term "Bulgarorum heresis" was used to describe their beliefs. In 1223, the Albigenses were described as the local "Bougres," and it was mentioned that the "Pope of the Albigenses" lived in Bulgaria. Groups like the Cathars, Patarenes, Waldenses, Anabaptists, Russian Strigolniki, and Spiritual Christians were sometimes linked to the Bogomils, even though some were not connected or did not share the same beliefs.

In the 14th century, during a religious debate called the Hesychast controversy, some scholars in the Byzantine Empire accused the teachings of hesychasm of being similar to Bogomilism.

Scholars have debated whether the dualist religious groups in medieval Europe were part of one shared movement or separate groups that developed independently. This confusion is partly because medieval sources, like the 13th-century Papal Inquisition in France, often assumed all dualist groups were connected, even if they were in different places. Inquisitors sometimes claimed that 13th-century Cathars were linked to older Manichean groups, even though this logic was also used to incorrectly accuse non-Christians of worshipping ancient gods like Apollo and Mercury. This shows that medieval scholars were unsure whether Cathars were truly related to Bogomils or if the Inquisition confused them due to misunderstandings.

In the novel Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, a story about a secret conspiracy is partly based on the disappearance of the Bogomils after the fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire to the Ottoman Empire.

A Macedonian movie called The Secret Book mixes detective, thriller, and conspiracy genres. It is based on a fictional story about a search for a "Secret Book" written by the Bogomils in Macedonia and taken to Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

The English word "buggery" and the French word "bouguer" came from the term "bougre," which was used to describe Bulgarians. This word originally meant "heresy" but later came to mean a sexual act. The word "buggery" first appeared in English in 1330 with this meaning, though the term "bugger" used for a person was not recorded until 1555.

Bogomil Cove in Antarctica is named after Priest Bogomil.

In Wallace Stegner's book Crossing to Safety, a professor named George Barnwell Ellis works on a book about the Bogomils for 25 years, though it is left unfinished at his death.

The Bogomils play an important role in Thomas Pynchon's novel Against the Day, where a character named Cyprian Lakewood gives up a life of secret spying.

In the computer game series Crusader Kings, players can create a heresy called Bogomilism as part of a Christian religion.

General and cited sources

• D. Angelov, Bogomilstvoto (Stara Zagora, 1995)
• L. P. Brockett, The Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia: The Early Protestants of the East (location not specified, 1879)
• J. Ivanov, Bogomilski knigi i legendi (Sofija, 1925). French translation by M. Ribeyrol, Livres et Légendes bogomiles (Paris, 1976).
• C. J. Jirecek, Geschichte d. Bulgaren (Prague, 1876), pages 155, 174–175
• J. Meiers, Archbishop Ancient Order of Bogomil, of Americas.
• D. Obolensky, The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge, 1948), reprinted in New York, 1978
• K. Papasov, Christen oder Ketzer – die Bogomilen (Stuttgart, 1983)
• S. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge, 1947)
• V. Sharenkoff, A Study of Manicheism in Bulgaria (New York, 1927).
• J. C. Wolf, Historia Bogomilorum (Wittenberg, 1712)
• Euthymius Zygabenus, Narratio de Bogomilis, edited by Gieseler (Göttingen, 1842)