The Cult Dossier · No. 014 · Christian-Derived
Paulicians
—
c.650 – 12th c. · Armenia, eastern Anatolia, Thrace
II. MEDIEVAL — HERESY, DUALISM AND THE MILLENNIUM
Fully religious — dualist Christian sect
Who led it
CONSTANTINE-SILVANUS (c.650), who took apostolic names; later leaders SYMEON-TITUS, GEGNESIUS-TIMOTHY, SERGIUS-TYCHICUS (801–835); the warlord KARBEAS and his nephew CHRYSOCHEIR.
What it worshipped and taught
A dualism in which the visible world was created by an evil god and the good God rules the world to come. Rejected the Old Testament, the cross, icons, sacraments, the Virgin's intercession and the church hierarchy. Docetic Christology — Christ only appeared to have a body.
Who was in it
Constantine-Silvanus; Sergius-Tychicus; Karbeas; Chrysocheir; Empress Theodora, who ordered the massacre; Emperor Basil I.
How it ended, or where it stands
Militarily destroyed; doctrinally continued through the Bogomils and Cathars.
The dead
100,000 IS THE CHRONICLERS’ FIGURE (Theophanes Continuatus), and modern historians regard it as inflated for rhetorical effect. The documented reality is thousands killed, crucified or drowned, and a mass flight to the Abbasid frontier. Carl Dixon’s The Paulicians (Brill) is the current scholarly treatment
Of note
The transmission line for medieval dualism running Manichaeans → Paulicians → Bogomils → Cathars.
Its timeline
- c.653–684 Constantine-Silvanus preaches in Armenia; stoned to death on imperial orders.
- 843–844 Empress Theodora launches a campaign of extermination. THE FIGURE OF 100,000 KILLED COMES FROM THEOPHANES CONTINUATUS and related Byzantine chronicles. HISTORIANS TREAT IT AS RHETORICAL INFLATION — these chroniclers wrote to present the suppression as righteous and routinely exaggerated Paulician dualism to justify imperial violence. WHAT IS NOT IN DOUBT: thousands were killed, crucified or drowned, and the survivors fled to the Arab frontier and built fortified strongholds there.
- 844 Survivors under Karbeas found an independent statelet at Tephrike (Divriği), allied with the Abbasids.
- 872 Chrysocheir defeated and killed; Tephrike falls 878.
- 10th c. Survivors deported to Thrace by John Tzimiskes, where they seed the Bogomils.