Free the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor prisoners in Libya!

Briefly, Bogomilism was both dualist and 'puritan'.
It was dualist in that it believed that Satan or Satanael, God's rebel elder son, was the creator of the universe. All matter therefore derives from an autonomous evil principle at war with God. Our bodies and their functions are unsanctified and cannot be sanctified. Satan made the body of man; the soul only was from God. It was puritan in that it rejected most of the dogmas and rites of the church as a human superstructure without the authority of Christ - an illusion which Satan has foisted on us. Thus typical Bogomil doctrine rejected all the Old Testament except the Psalms and retained of the New only Jesus's teachings in the Spirit. His whole human life, as partaking of matter, was necessarily mere appearance. Atonement and Redemption become meaningless if man, created not by God but by Satan, never fell. The Mother of God and the Cross are hateful debasements; the sacraments, including marriage, valueless; the Doctors of the church - false teachers. The doctrine of the Trinity was interpreted in various unorthodox ways. Their practice therefore was deceptively simple: prayer to God and to his true emanation, Jesus - especially the Lord's Prayer; non-involvement as far as possible in all the toils of matter, including sexual abstinence; the avoidance of wine and all food of living origin.

The medieval cemetery had about 110 of these large stone slabs, carved with various Bogomil motifs.

The most common figure on the gravestones is the big hand guy. He is carved with a crossbow behind one cocked arm and with a ring floating Tolkein-like over a grotesquely exaggerated upheld hand. His wears the gear of an armored knight.

The Bogomils (also called “Patarenes”) were the original all-Bosnian, indigenous high civilization. (More on the Bogomil Heresy). Consequently, current 21st Century Bosnian nationalism uses them as a symbol. Religiously the Bogamil culture is interesting. They were heretics persecuted by Rome. Pressure from the Catholic Church eventually aggravated the Bogomils to the point where they either capitulated to Catholicsim, or,more often, were so turned off by Catholicism that they left Christianity and converted in large quantities to Islam when the Ottomans came, forming the backbone today of who we think of as “The Bosnian Muslims”. Whatever. I just know I like their tomb carvings.

The now defunct Gnostic social-religious movement and doctrine originated in at the time of Peter I of Bulgaria (927-969) as a reaction of the state and clerical oppression. In spite of all measures of repression, it remained strong and popular until the fall of Bulgaria in the end of 14th century.

"From AD 830, the Armenian branch of the Paulician movement was centered on a village called Tondrak, hence the name Tondrakites. They attacked the feudal privileges of the Armenian barons, who united with the clergy in persecuting and suppressing them. The Tondrakites are hailed by modern Soviet historians as ancestors of present-day Communism; a tract purporting to be their manual of doctrine was published in 1898, under the title The Key of Truth. The Paulicians are also important for their influence on the development of Bogomilism in the Balkans, where there were important Armenian colonies, particularly in Bulgaria."

The cardinal point of the Paulician heresy is a distinction between the God who made and governs the material world and the God of heaven who created souls, who alone should be adored. They thought all matter bad. It seems therefore obvious to count them as one of the many neo-Manichaean sects, in spite of their own denial and that of modern writers.

The whole ecclesiastical hierarchy is bad, as also all Sacraments and ritual. They had a special aversion to monks. Their own organization consisted first of the founders of their sect in various places. These were apostles and prophets. They took new names after people mentioned by St. Paul, thus Constantine called himself Silvanus; apparently they claimned to be these persons come to life again. Under the apostles and prophets were "fellow-workers" (synechdemoi) who formed a council, and "notaries" (notarioi), who looked after the holy books and kept order at meetings. Their conventicles were called, not churches, but "prayer-houses" (proseuchai). They maintained that it was lawful to conceal or even deny their ideas for fear of persecution; many of them lived exteriorly as Catholics. Their ideal was a purely spiritual communion of faithful that should obliterate all distinctions of race. Their enemies accuse them constantly of gross immorality, even at their prayer-meetings. One of their chief leaders, Baanes, seems to have acquired as a recognized surname the epithet "filthy" (ho ryproz). They would recognize no other name for themselves than "Christians"; the Catholics were "Romans (Romaioi), that is, people who obey the Roman emperor, as the Monophysites called their opponents Melchites. Harnack sums them up as "dualistic Puritans and Individualists and as "an anti-hierarchic Christianity built up on the Gospel, and Apostle, with emphatic rejection of Catholic Christianity" (Dogmengeschichte, II 528).

The Bogomils were without doubt the connecting link between the so-called heretical sects of the East and those of the West. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Bogomils were already known in the West as "Bulgari". In 1223 the Albigenses are declared to be the local Bougres.
The Bogomils spread westwards, and settled first in Serbia; but at the end of the 12th century the king of Serbia persecuted them and expelled them from the country. Large numbers took refuge in Bosnia, where they became known as Patareni. From there they moved to Italy and Hungary. In the 15th century the conquest of Hungary by the Turks ended the persecution of the Bogomils. It is claimed that a large number of the Bosnians accepted Islam. Few or no remnants of Bogomilism have survived in Bosnia.
The Bogomils disappeared because of persecution and the expansion of Islam, but elements of their ideas and folklore persisted for centuries in Slavic lands, and it is still an open question whether the reference Bulgari in Europe has associations of heresy.

BULGARIAN BOGOMIL

AND APOCRYPHAL IDEAS

IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH CULTURE

This book will offer its readers an unusual trip in the medieval culture of Europe, following and proving as it does the conveyance of a large number of apocrypha and Bogomil literature to England. It is a well-known fact that Bogomilism, or haeresia Bulgarorum, spread all over Europe by branches like the Cathars, the Patarenes, the Poblicans (same Popelicani), the Begins, the Spirituals and even later offshoots. Until now, however, it was assumed - particularly by 20th century medieval studies - that the heresy reached England only occasionally, appearing in Oxford in 1162. The heretics were stigmatised and banished then and there is no other record of Cathar presence.

ACCORDING THE DUALISTS (BOGOMILS, CATHARS AND LOLLARDS) CHRIST FREES ALL SOULS FROM THE HELL

The photograph shows a miniature from the St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter). As one can see here Christ saves all souls – “out of helle mennes souls” to quote The Vision of Piers Plowman (Passus XVIII, l. 373). The Psalter was created possibly between 1123 and 1135 at St. Albans Abbey near London. We are very grateful for this high quality reproduction provided personally by Dr. Helmar Härtel from the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, where the St. Albans Psalter is kept. Christ leads the souls away from hell.Mural painting from the Boyana Church, 13th century. The Bulgarian art critic Kiril Krustev is convinced that the anonymous Boyana artist was under the influence of Bogomil ideas. The salvation of all souls is emphasized by Avel with a shephard’s stick (visible to the left ), among other descendants of Adam. Photo: Vl. Vitanov. More information in DUALIST IDEAS IN THE ENGLISH PRE-REFORMATION AND REFORMATION (Bogomil-Cathar Influence on Wycliffe, Tyndale, Langland and Milton). Bul- Koreni Publishing House, Sofia. 2005, p.p. 117-120; 129-130. Both compositions correspond to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus extensively used by the Dualists.

Gnosticism Sells Big

By Gary Potter

Editors Introduction: The ancient heresies known as Gnosticism are very much in our midst, forming an integral part of the "culture of death" referred to frequently by the Holy Father. In this powerful critique, Gary Potter confronts one of its latest literary expressions: The Da Vinci Code.

Like other gnostics, the Cathars rejected the sacraments, except for one they made up, a sort of Last Rite called the consolamentum. However, unlike some other dualists, there was a pragmatic side to the Cathars. They frankly recognized that most men and women are incapable of lives of total self-denial. Those who could manage it were honored by the Cathars as the perfecti (the Perfect Ones). Most were simply credentes, ordinary believers. The difference ultimately did not much matter since the consolamentum was held to absolve believers from all sins so that it was not necessary to try to live virtuously. This meant, in practice, that Cathars could (and often did) give themselves to lives of orgiastic debauchery and remain confident in being "saved" — as long as they received consolamentum at the end. "Should a Believer survive after having been given the consolamentum, he would be smothered to death by his family in a practice known as the endura. The endura was necessary because the administration of the consolamentum could only be performed once in a person's life, and it was seen as absolutely necessary to assure the salvation of the non-Perfect among the members of the community." (This writer has tried to research the point, but cannot say if there were any Cathar theologians who taught consolamentum "by desire.")

Another difference between Catharism and some other forms of gnosticism was that in its ranks women were more-or-less equal to men. They, too, were seen as capable of becoming perfecti to the extent very many of either gender could. It appears women may even have played roles in Cathar ceremonies in the way that female lectors, acolytes and Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers do in the Novus Ordo Church. It should go without saying that among the Cathars suicide was not regarded as sinful. On the contrary, this world being evil, leaving it voluntarily was perfectly reasonable, even virtuous.

The impression among the clergymen wasn't lesser, in 1106, Theophylact of Ohrid wrote to the Basileus John Comnenus:
"One of the monks and clergymen [a Bogomil leader called Vasiliy, Slav name], to my misfortune, scorned God and became a prey to shamelessness, rejecting the human feeling of shame, and assumed the figure of a harlot, rejected his own image and ate meat rather than fasting, [became] libertine rather than forbearing... That is why I ordered that this contagious and common disease be expelled from these territories [...]"

The relevant feature of these gnostic forerunners of Ashmolean Rosicrucianism is the doctrine of utter depravity of the "flesh" which is the direct source of the materialist dogmas of Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Newton, et al. The sexual perversions of the Cathars are a direct, doctrinaire correlative of this materialist dogma of theirs. Briefly, one of the cult's Elect was forbidden to place his semen in the vagina of a woman, lest he cause the procreation of newborn human flesh! The spirit inhabiting the Elect must be kept apart from the utter depravity of the fleshly process of human procreation. The Cathar cult was known in France as the Bulgarian cult, or "Les Bougres," which translated into English as "the Buggers." Because of the cult's peculiar sexual perversion, which flowed from their gnostic doctrine of separation of matter and spirit, it resorted to various other kinds of sexual activity, and thus the name "Bugger" became associated in English with homosexuality.

Another term that came into use in the twelfth century but gained ground after 1235, is Bulgarus "Bulgarian," whence French bougre and English bugger (from which the nouns of action bougrerie and buggery were subsequently derived). It was the merit of a heresy hunter Robert le Bougre to have confounded all the heretical sects under one name, which became synonymous with "heretic" and then "sodomite" and "usurer." Catholic inquisitors accused adherents of dualist sects of practicing the detestable vice, in part because of their unconventional views on sexual morality. English "buggery" is not, however, unambiguously attested in the sexual sense until the penal law of Henry VIII in 1533; it is nowhere found in Middle English. This term is the semantic reflex of the equation sodomite = heretic in late medieval Latin Christendom paralleled by such phrases as Ketzer nach dem Fleisch alongside Ketzer nach dem Glauben.

French couple, not wanting children, denied marriage by parish priest

METZ, France (CNS) -- A French bishop has defended a parish priest in northern France who refused to officiate at a marriage because the couple planned not to have children. Bishop Pierre Raffin of Metz said the priest was correct in denying the marriage because the church requires the "personal adherence to the Catholic Church's vision of marriage -- that marriage is entered into freely, for life, and for the procreation of children." Bishop Raffin said the church regularly granted marriage to people unable to conceive children "for reasons of age or physical impediment," but required healthy couples to express their willingness to procreate "in writing and publicly" at the moment of marriage. "The absence or explicit refusal, hard and confirmed, of one of these dispositions prevents the priest from solemnizing a religious marriage," he said.

See

Heresy

Gnosis

Gnostic

A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that man's first rituals were carried out over 40, 000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.

Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankind's oldest known ritual.

The archaeologist made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.

Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world.

The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the "Mountains of the Gods" and the "Rock that Whispers".

The python is one of the San's most important animals. According to their creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.

Sheila Coulson's find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s.

When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three master's students, it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made.

"You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving".

It was a major archaeological find five years ago that made it possible for Sheila Coulson to date the finds in this little cave in Botswana. Up until the turn of the century, archaeologists believed that human civilisation developed in Europe after our ancestors migrated from Africa. This theory was crushed by Archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood when he published his find of traces from a Middle Stone Age dwelling in the Blombos Cave in Southern Cape, South Africa.

Some still do.....

Study: First Europeans lived in Italy

ROME, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- A team of Italian scientists says it has determined the first Europeans lived in southern Italy and not Spain, as had been thought.

Researchers from universities in Rome, Turin, Florence and Ferrara say a collection of fossilized flint tools and other instruments found in the southeastern region of Puglia has been dated to about 1.7 million years ago -- predating the oldest Spanish finds by nearly 1 million years, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The researchers say their discovery means paleontologists will have to redraw maps charting the path of ancient man out of Africa.

"This discovery reopens the debate on the origin of the population of the whole of Europe," said Carmelo Petronio of Rome's La Sapienza University. "It supports the theory that the first Europeans migrated westward across the Near East and not from northwestern Africa.