PAULICIANS

PAULICIANS. A sect with its origins in Armenian antiquity and lasting perhaps into early modern times, the Paulicians in their homeland were characterized by an adoptionist Christology, iconoclasm (qq.v.), and a strong emphasis on the charismatic leader. During the 9th c. and only within the territories of Byzantium in Asia Minor (qq.v.), the sect appears to have undergone a mutation that featured emphasis on sharp dualism between the realms of spirit and matter (see Gnosticism), proceeding to an entirely negative appreciation of sacraments and the church hierarchy. In this form imperial authorities transplanted it to the Empire’s northwestern borderlands, in part to strengthen the region’s defenses. From there it seems to have contributed to the rise of the Bogomil movement in llth-c. Bulgaria and elsewhere in the Slavic Balkans (qq.v.), and thus later still to the Cathari, or Albigensians, of 12th-13th-c. Provence, France.