Talk:Bogomilism

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[edit] Differentiated perspective on Dualism needed

There are two things I want to reflect upon with this article. First, I believe the term Bogomilism gives a misleading notion, I think the Bogomils may would have found the coining somehow strange. the suffix renders the meaning of direction, and that those who are coined as belonging to the direction, -ism, find Truth emblematically denoted with stands before the -ism. Here that is Bogomil. To me that simply means those who find truth on the Bogomil way. Truly that is not too bad as Bogomil may also mean "Dear to God" or Friend of God". But as long as there is not so much certainty to this, it may also refer to the priest Bugomil who are seen as a founder of the movement, the notion I get from terming it Bogomilism is obscure. Second: The understanding of the dualisms of especially gnostic heresies needs to be revised. For instant, the dualism of the Bogomils are not absolute. The prince of Darkness, Satanael, and the prince of Light, Michael are both sons of the One Father-Mother. Both the Bogomils and the Albigensians were esoteric in its structure, meaning here that the teachings came in successions of initiation rites, or induced mystic states of consciousness, or atonement with the allencompassing God, where also the fundamental duality of everything is overcome. I have not the sources available to bring this knowledge to the article itself, but hope some will reflect on it and, in time, apply the proper well-founded enlightenment. --Xact (talk) 19:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Broaden the discourse!

This article isn't well written and lacks citation. There is a lot of scholarly debate about whether Bogomil doctrines can or cannot be traced to the Paulicians, Massalians, Gnostics, Manichaeism, even Buddhism, so for the sake of neutrality I do not believe this article should state they are "Gnostics" or "Manicheans" as a fact, but rather have a section outlining the different theories by different scholars.

I think this entry would also benefit by addressing the debate around to what degree Bogomilism can be viewed as a social/political resistance movement rather than as a purely religous one.

Likewise, is one of the fascinating legacies of Bogomilism is the way in which in modern times various groups have attempted to interept its legacy to its own benefit...communists, Bulgarian and Macedonian nationalists, Bosniaks, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martins79 (talk • contribs) 23:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether the Bogomils can be accurately termed gnostic at all: dualist certainly, but can any continuity really be claimed between this sect and the early mystical heresies of the first three centuries CE? --User:Ben Parsons 10:58 GMT, 11 Aug 2005

The page Bosnian Church, which is not from EB1911, indicates that the main heretic religion in Bosnia at this time was not Bogomil gnostic, but mainstream early protestant. Someone should probably verify if Rački's and Ollinger's (or is it Dollinger's? Bad OCR...) 19th century conclusions are still considered canonical. --Shallot 11:34, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know of an association between Bogomilism and the Phoundagiagitai? Euthymios, in a reference I didn't save from Google books, apparently thought the two sects were similar, perhaps the same.

From http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/7224/Rick/chrono11.htm

1034: In around this year a certain Euthymios produced an account of a heretical group known as the Phoundagiagitai. In around the year 1000, the supposed founder of the group, John Tzourillas, was charged with rape. John had preached near Smyrna with considerable success. The Phoundagiagitai were fond of breaking up church services on the grounds that prayer should be private (Matthew 6.6). Initiation into the group involved a ceremony in which the Apocalypse of St. Peter was recited over the intiate’s head. They held that the devil had been expelled from heaven for stealing the sun and the soul. Euthymios added: “They teach not to expect the resurrection of the dead, nor the second coming, nor the Last Judgment, but that all power over earthly things with hell and paradise belongs to the lord of this world, that is to say, the devil, and that he puts his friends in paradise and his enemies in hell, and that he has nothing in common with God, but that God reigns in the heavens and the lord of the world on earth.”

I'm infrequent for this site; please email me with your responses at winwinsit@hotmail.com .

DrYattz 09:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name and origin

I am Bulgarian. My name is Konstantin Velev. The origin and history of bogomils are a well known part of the well known history of Bulgaria. The ‘Bulgars’ (old Bulgarians or proto-Bulgarians) - in spite of the wide spread mistake, ware not Turkic nor yet nomadic. They ware pamirian. In other words they spoke Indo-European language. All this in no way contradicts here. See: Old Church Slavonic – please. It is the western name of the Slavic langrage spoken in Bulgaria at that time. I have no idea who this Dmitri Obolensky is and I do not care. "Bogu mili" ("those who are dear to God") is literally in Bulgarian (also in modern Bulgarian)! “Bog” is god and “mil”,“mili” (in plural) is dear to someone (also in modern Bulgarian)!

Instead of “finding” anything “unconvincing” – please check the historical documents.

The name 'Messalian' comes from a Syriac root meaning 'Those who pray' (look up "cly" in the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon: http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/). So also 'Euchite' in Greek. No apparent relationship with 'Bogu Mili' --BobGriffin-Nukraya 23:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Then the fact that the name Bogomil is a literral translation of 'Messalian' should be reexamined. Not only in Bulgarian, but Bogomil means "dear to god" in most of the Slavic languages (by the way, note I'm not of bulgarian origin). Also, I've studied back in primary school that they were also known as Babuni, because they were pretty widespread around the mountain and river Babuna near the town of Veles in modern Republic of Macedonia. Does anyone know something about this? Zaebangad 19:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm Vladimir and I'm Macedonian, and I think I know something about this, because I'm from Bogomila (village in the center of Macedonia by the river Babuna. Here everybody knows that Bogomilism begins with the Macedonian priest Bogomil from this village Bogomila and his people - Babuni. It was not connected by any way with Bulgarians. In fact this was first anti Bulgarian and anti Greek movement in Macedonia and on the base of this movement Tsar Samoil liberated Macedonia and created the first free and independent Macedonian kingdom. So, Konstantin please throw away your bulgarian "history books" and come in Bogomila and ask everybody about Bulgarian atrocities in Bogomila and surrounding starting right after this Bogomilism movement until the Second World War.

It was a BULGARIAN Empire

Samuel NEVER said about "Macedonians"..

SIMEON STATE'S MAP [1]

SAMUIL STATE'S MAP[2]

BULGARIA THEME IN SKOPJE AND OHRID [3] [4] [5] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.0.219 (talk) 11:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fact Falsification

The origin of the population of these towns is Armenian Paulicians. The presentation of the Armenian Paulicians as Bogomils is a falsification.


The term "Ruthenia" everywhere in the article is meaningless, especially in reference to Molokani and Dukhobory, who were 18-19th century Russian old-believer sects, and have nothing to do with Austrian province "Ruthenia" of that time. I replaced "Ruthenia" with "Russia", "Medieval Russia" or "Kievan Rus".

[edit] Gnostic

Evidence needs to be provided in the article that the Bogomils were Gnostic. Dualism is not enough as that position belong to non-Gnostics as well.

More to the point is that not all gnostics must be dualists. All that gnosticism implies, as I understand it, is a secret knowledge (the gnosis that is possessed only by an inner core of elect believers. Lexikonoklast 05:35, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Lexikonoklast

Perhaps, most ironic, are all the alleged history of Bogomil. Where as, in Modern America. the Ancient Order of Bogomil. thru its Archbishop, J.L.Meiers, has brought the Ancient practices, into Modern Concepts of Practice(s). it is No longer Known as the "Secret Order of Bogomil", as it had been for centuries. due to misrepresentations. the followers and church leaders felt, it was needed, to practice in secret, as governments, and other church religious officials, had sought to discredit, and win over the followers, to their belief systems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.111.81.115 (talk) 15:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Doctrine Section

'From the imperfect and conflicting data which are available one positive result can be gathered: that the Bogomils were both Adoptionists and Manichaeans.'

To my mind, the word Manichaean only has meaning when it refers to a group of people who actually, intentionally, knowingly, and in a self-identifying way consider themselves to follow the teachings of Mani.

Many medieval theologians used the word to mean little more than 'Dualist' (much in the lower-case way that it is used by modern writers). It is a shame that they wrote this way, but their knowledge of Mani and his teachings was pretty much restricted to the writings of St. Augustine, so you can't really blame them.

But we no longer suffer from this historical ignorance, so unless the Bogomils actually considered themselves the successors of Mani's religious movement, it is highly inappropriate to call them Manichaeans. I don't know enough about them to make this change on my own (the reason why I came to this article was to learn about them), but I just wanted to put this out there so that a) someone who knows more about this than I can think about it and make any appropriate changes, and b) whoever put this passage in there in the first place is warned that I am planning on coming through and changing it at some later date (after I get a book on the Bogomils).

I think you have it right here. My knowledge is more limited when it comes to Bogomilism than when it comes to western heretics. Lexikonoklast 05:35, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Lexikonoklast

[edit] Bosnia, again

Uncited, and highly controversial, references to Bosnian Bogomilism have been spread out again (likely as a WP:POVFORK from Bosnian Church). I will tag them with {{fact}} and remove them soon unless someone can prove the Bulgarian-Bosnian link with relevant sources (Bosniak popular mythology doesn't count). Duja 11:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] So-called

"the so-called heretical sects of the East and those of the West" I'm just curious why the article says "so-called" in this place but not in others. I consider it a heresy, but I'm not sure whether such a term is considered pejorative and therefore POV by non-traditional Christians. Either way, we should be consistent. Nyttend 16:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality + weasel words

The History part is based on Bosniak popular myths and not on historical facts which is presented with lots of weasel words and no sources. --Noirceuil 12:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To the anon user

Do not mechanically replace Bulgarian with Macedonian. This article is well sourced. If you have something to add, please do so incorporating it into the existing text. Mr. Neutron 22:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Official language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Quoted from the article: The forced Christianization of the Slavs and proto-Bulgarians by Tsar Boris I in 863 and the fact that the religion was practised in Greek, which only the ‘elite’ knew, resulted in a very superficial level of understanding of the religion, if any understanding at all.

Well, that is exactly not true. Confusion regading Christianity also arised due to the Bulgarian population was first Christianised by Greek Orthodox priests, then by Latin Catholics, because of Boris' political machinations to achieve an autonomous church. Yet, while the statemant of "superficial understanding", it is not valid for the late IXth century and onwards. As for the Greek language, one of the main goal of Boris I and his son Simeon I was to create a Slavic alphabeth and to remove the Greek language from the Bulgarian church (which became the first truly Slavonic church). By the late 920's when Bogomilism started spreding most, if not all priests would have spoken Slavonic in liturgies and such. This should be corrected in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.83.252.168 (talk) 08:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Letter from Heaven

Which Letter from Heaven is the article talking about? The Himmelsbrief tradition has gone across centuries and continents. --84.20.17.84 (talk) 10:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)