quality:corruption, linguistic:paraphrasing, stylistic:tone, stylistic:style_transfer
Bogomilism

During the reign of Emperor Peter I (r. 927–969) a heretical movement known as Bogomilism arose in Bulgaria. The heresy was named after its founder the priest Bogomil whose name can be translated as dear (mil) to God (Bog). The main sources about Bogomilism in Bulgaria come from a letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch Theophylact of Constantinople to Peter I (c. 940), a treatise by Cosmas the Priest (c. 970) and the anti-Bogomil council of Emperor Boril of Bulgaria (1211). Bogomilism was a neo-Gnostic and dualist sect that believed that God had two sons, Jesus Christ and Satan, that represented the two principles good and evil. God had created light and the invisible world, while Satan rebelled and created darkness, the material world and man. Therefore, they rejected marriage, reproduction, the Church, the Old Testament, the Cross, etc. The Bogomils were divided into several categories, led by the perfecti (the perfect ones) that never married, consumed no meat and wine and preached the gospel. Women too could become perfecti. The other two categories were the believers, who had to adopt and follow most of the Bogomil moral ethics, and the listeners, who were not required to change their lifestyle. The Bogomils were described by Cosmas as looking docile, modest and silent from the outside, but being hypocrites and ravenous wolves in the inside. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church condemned the teachings of Bogomilism. Members of the sect were persecuted by the state authorities as well; the Bogomils preached civil disobedience because they considered the state—as with anything earthly—to be linked with Satan. The sect could not be eradicated and from Bulgaria it eventually spread to the rest of the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, southern France and northern Italy. In certain regions of Western Europe the heresy flourished under different names – Cathars, Albigensians, Patarins – until the 14th century.