(Greek, Paulikianoi, presumably from the name of the apostle Paul), members of a large medieval heretical movement in Christianity.
The Paulician heresy originated in the mid-seventh century in the eastern Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia). The founder of the movement was the Armenian Constantine, who subsequently took the name Silvanus. By the early eighth century, the Paulician movement had also spread to Eastern Armenia and the Byzantine area of Asia Minor. Most Paulicians were peasants, and some belonged to the lower urban strata. The movement was antifeudal in nature, directed against enserfment and the yoke of the state. By the mid-eighth century in Armenia the Paulician movement had also become a national liberation movement against the caliphate.
Manichaeism and Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism) influenced the Paulician religiophilosophical doctrine. In their philosophical views the Paulicians were dualists. They believed in a god of good, the heavenly father, and a god of evil, Satan. Christ was regarded as one of the angels and the son of the god of good. According to the teaching of the Paulicians, after the destruction of the god of evil, who is the creator of the visible world and people, the god of good will reign over the earth. The Paulicians rejected the veneration of the mother of god and the prophets and saints. They also repudiated the church and the clergy and especially monasticism. The only book considered holy was the New Testament, exclusive of the epistles of the apostle Peter. The Paulician doctrinal beliefs were formulated during the first half of the ninth century by the heresiarch Sergius-Tychicus.
In the mid-ninth century, the Paulicians shifted to an open struggle, engaging in an armed uprising against Byzantine domination. In this period, Karbeas and Chrysocheir became the Paulician military leaders. The Paulicians established their own state with its capital at Tephrike on the Arab-Byzantine border. Led by Karbeas and Chrysocheir, they carried out campaigns into the inner regions of Byzantium, reaching Nicea, Nicomedia, and Ephesus. In 872 Byzantine troops defeated the Paulicians at Bathyryax. Chrysocheir died in the battle. In 878, the Byzantines captured Tephrike. The surviving Paulicians found refuge in Armenia, where the Thondraki became their successors. (In Byzantine sources they are often called Paulicians.) During the eighth and ninth centuries the Byzantine government on several occasions resettled the Paulicians in the Balkans (primarily in Philippopolis), where they played a significant role in the rise of the Bogomil sect.
R. M. BARTIKIAN