Павликиане: История армянской христианской секты VII века.

Christian sect formed in 7th century Armenia

Paulicianism (Classical Armenian: Պաւղիկեաններ, ; , "The followers of Paul"; Arab sources: Baylakānī, al Bayāliqa البيالقة) was a medieval Christian sect which originated in Armenia in the 7th century. Followers of the sect were called Paulicians and referred to themselves as Good Christians. Little is known about the Paulician faith and various influences have been suggested, including Gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichaeism and Adoptionism, with other scholars arguing that doctrinally the Paulicians were a largely conventional Christian reform movement unrelated to any of these currents. The founder of the Paulicians is traditionally held to have been an Armenian by the name of Constantine, who hailed from a Syrian community near Samosata in modern day Turkey. The sect flourished between 650 and 872 around the Byzantine Empire's frontier with the Arab Caliphate in Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, despite intermittent persecutions and deportations by the imperial authorities in Constantinople. 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 modern Roman Catholic Banat Bulgarians The movement may have also been an influence on medieval European Christian heteredox movements such as Bogomilism and Catharism. or "True Believers", 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. Certain medieval Byzantine and Muslim sources associate the sect with the 3rd century Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata. This may be a conflation with the separate Paulianist sect, however, 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. Another possible source is Paul the Armenian, an otherwise obscure Paulician figure said to have led the sect in its migration to Episparis following its persecution by Justinian II at the close of the 7th century.

The sources indicate that most Paulician leaders were Armenians and the founder of the sect is said to have been an Armenian by the name of Constantine, Despite deportations and continued persecution the sect continued to grow, receiving additions from some of the iconoclasts. 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 of Leo the Armenian. Upon the death of Sergius, the control of the sect was divided between several leaders.

In 843, the Empress Theodora, as regent to her son Michael III, instituted a major persecution against the Paulicians throughout Asia Minor in which 100,000 adherents in Byzantine Armenia alone were said to have lost their lives or property. In response to the renewed persecution many Paulicians, under their new leader Karbeas, fled across the border to the areas of Armenia under Arab control. Under the protection of Umar al Aqta, the Emir of Melitene, the sect was permitted by the Arabs to build two fortress cities, Amara and Tephrike, and establish an independent state. Karbeas died in 863 during Michael III's campaign against the Arabs and possibly was with Umar at Malakopea before the Battle of Lalakaon. Karbeas's successor, Chrysocheres ('the goldenhand'), devastated many cities in the continued wars with the Byzantines; in 867, he advanced as far as Ephesus, where he took many priests as prisoners. In 868, Emperor Basil I dispatched Petrus 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 his History 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 at Battle of Bathys Ryax in 872 or 878.

By 878, the emperor Basil I had conquered the Paulician strongholds in Asia Minor (including Tephrike) and the survivors from the destruction of the Paulician state were largely displaced. One group migrated east further into Armenia, where they were assimilated into the emerging Tondrakian sect throughout the 10th century. At the end of the 17th century, these Roman Catholic descendants of Paulicians were living around Nikopol, Bulgaria and suffered religious persecution by the Ottomans. Controversies about the faith include disputes about their beliefs regarding the nature of God, the nature of Christ and their devotional rituals and practices liturgics protestant.

Some scholars argue that the Paulician belief system was dualistic, a cosmological system of twin, opposing deities; an Evil demiurge who is author and lord of the present visible world; and a Good Spirit who is the God of the future world. Eighteenth century scholar Johann Lorenz von Mosheim criticised the identification of Paulicians as Manichaeans, although he agreed both sects were dualistic he argued that the Paulicians differed on several points and undoubtedly rejected the doctrine of the prophet Mani. The reports of Catholic missionaries working among the remaining Paulicians in the Balkans during the 16th–18th centuries do not reference dualist beliefs.

Paulicians may have held several unorthodox beliefs about Jesus, including nontrinitarianism (the belief that Jesus was not coeternal, coequal and indivisibly united in one being with God the Father and the Holy Spirit) and docetism (the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion). Nontrinitarian beliefs were held by Arian Christians and many early Christian sects such as the Adoptionists. The identification with nontrinitarianism sometimes led the Paulicians to be labeled as Arians by critics Conybeare also asserted that the movement were survivors of early Adoptionist Christianity in Armenia rather than dualist or Gnostic sects. Coynbeare'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. 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. 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 produced The 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 of The Key of Truth, as well as the use of the phrase "only born" in The Key of Truth chapters 2, 17, 21, and 22.

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 four Gospels (especially of Luke);

In the putatively Paulician or Tondrakian work The Key of Truth, copied in the 18th century, the Old Testament, Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist are all accepted. 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 diplomat Paul Rycaut.