#bogomils

[barbelo-babe]

Me, starting a new game of Crusader Kings: “Let’s just have a normal Catholic game, respect the church, go on some crusades, participate in some dynastic politics, it’ll be fun and normal.”

Me, converting to Catharism not even 5 years later: “Fuck the Church, fuck the patriarchy, the woman’s rights movement starts right now in 867.”

[forbidden-sorcery]

Bogomils believed that the God who ruled in Heaven could not have anything to do with the material world. Just like Buddhists, they upheld the thesis that life is suffering. They believed that there was no hell after death, but that hell was the material world and material existence. As a result, ruling that world, on his throne, sits Sataniel, the master of all occurrences, good and bad; while God in heaven, the immaterial world, has no influence on people, their lives or spiritual growth. He could be reached only through Sataniel, the guardian of the gate and master of death who would enable one to pass through. This is why, to them, nothing was important; neither kings nor states, neither State nor Church laws, neither sexual restraint nor acquiring material goods. Following this logic, the Bogomils came to formulate the biggest heresy, the one which would eventually cause their tribulation. In their belief, Christ could not have been the son of God because he was in the material world, otherwise known as Hell, and by that logic he would have to have been Sataniel's son, or the Devil. This perspective on Christianity is present even today in Eastern Serbia, and I have encountered it myself around Majdanpek. This view of the spiritual world, anarchism and sexual freedom also incorporated many folk beliefs and methods, which would bring the Bogomils to set the final stone in the path of traditional witchcraft in these regions. Bogomils refused to differentiate between men and women. Bodies were irrelevant to them, because they were made from matter, so gender was irrelevant. In their belief system all genders are in same position because all of them are in hell and hell is the material world. We don't need to emphasize how tremendous a sin this was in the Middle Ages and in the eyes of the Church.

Radomir Ristic

[elladastinkardiamou]

This Is Greece's Abandoned Heretic Graveyard From Ancient Times

Greece is a country of many secrets; one of them is the abandoned graveyard of a gnostic Christian sect in a little city outside Thessaloniki. Just 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) from the country’s second city, this forgotten cemetery survived the centuries and reminds visitors of a small page of the country’s rich history.

[santmat]

Happy Easter: Images: an actual cross from the Gnostic Bruce Codex of Egypt, and, a Bogomil cross. The Bogomils were a European Manichaean Gnostic group. See: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/abandoned-bogomils-graveyard

[liberationgnosis]

They teach their followers not to obey their masters; they scorn the rich, they hate the Tsars, they ridicule their superiors, they reproach the boyars, they believe that God looks in horror on those who labour for the Tsar, and advise every serf not to work for his master.