Exploring medieval secrets mood activated?

Nearly ten centuries ago, in the Byzantine Empire, there was a gnostic movement called Bogomilism that owed its name to the spiritual leader Bogomil (from the Slavic word ‘Bog’ which stands for God and ‘mil’ which means dear). You got it! The Bogomils were dear to God, perhaps too dear to fit into the shadowy medieval times.

As you can imagine, their cultural heritage today is almost inexistent. The Church authorities made sure to get rid of any trace of their beliefs and practices, but the spirit of their teachings migrated to the other side of Europe.

If you’ve read my previous posts about the city of Carcassonne, I am sure you can already connect the dots. If you haven’t read the story of the Cathars yet, you can check it out at the link below.

Where can we find the influence of the Bogomils today?

The traces of the Bogomil movement can be seen in many examples of the Balkan architecture, literature and art, such as the Macedonian Mijak tradition. The deep connection between the Mijaks, an ethnographic group of Macedonians, and the Bogomils is the traditional Mijak respect for the Bogomil symbols and their preservation, especially in their architecture and art.

The tribal flag of the Mijaks is the crescent with a star, another Bogomil symbol that confirms the power of the traditional Bogomil spiritual culture.

The Bogomils had extremely progressive ideas that were unequivocally condemned by their contemporaries.

Racin, one of the greatest Macedonian poets, saw Bogomilism as a rebel movement against the feudal system that conflicted with Christian values. 

“In the Balkans, there lived a rotten Byzantine empire and a few new Slavic ones. But the Slavs, amongst whom Bogomilism was born, did not have a kingdom of their own and thus lived in accordance with their Old Slavic, Agrarian-Democratic way of living. Which is why when the Slavic feudal lords established their dominion, and when they started to stifle that democratic lifestyle, to enslave the people, to rob them of their land, and then learn about how to become a supreme force – that is when Bogomilism came to pass as their opposition.”

– Racin, 1966

Racin even compared the Bogomils with the Age of Enlightenment:

“Will anyone be surprised when they hear how such people [the Bogomils] lived and held fiery sermons in our country in the 10th century, who with their ideas were like the forerunners of the social educators from the 17th century?” (Racin,1966)

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Bogomils were already known in the West as “the Cathars”. The symbolism behind the few traces left of their existence cannot be a coincidence. 

The Cathars shared the ideas of equality, tolerance, and non-violence with the Bogomils. Both of the movements considered women as equally capable of being spiritual leaders. Unfortunately, besides having the same origins, they had the same destiny as their predecessors.

Historians still tend to deconstruct the story of the mysterious Bogomils that were banned by the Church, trying to figure out whether the Bogomils who were expelled from the Balkans settled in the southern region of France, or the two movements coexisted and inspired each other.

One thing is sure: the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment and today’s liberal ideas already existed in the gloomiest period of European history.