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Home , Bogomilism, Bosnian Church, Euchites, Hagia Sophia, Paulicianism

Why Bosnian did not belong to ? "Kr'stjani" (mystics) vs "Bogomili" (dualists)

Amer Dardagan [email protected]

Summary

This paper in a simple and transparent way critically examines the rejected belief in science that and its followers doctrinally and organisationally belonged to the dualist of Bogomilism. The research was carried out by a comparative analysis of the basic dualistic postulates of , and Bogomilism on the one hand and the available domestic sources of the Bosnian Church on the other. The importance of the work is reflected in the concise and detailed scientific argumentation that undermines "Bogomil Bosnian Church" myth, while offering a new scientific thesis on the religious and doctrinological affiliation of the "Bosnian faith" and the Bosnian "krs'tjani". In the first part, the paper deals with the problem of extreme and moderate dualism, with a special emphasis on the Neognostic, Neomanichaean and Bogomil communities in medieval . In the second part, the basic premises of are given, including the possibility of its philosophical and theological compatibility with the teachings of the Bosnian Church, where for the first time the phenomenon of the name "kr'stjani" is explained in relation to the mystical union ("unio mystica").

Keywords dualism, moderate and extreme dualism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Bogomilism, mysticism, ordo de Drugonthia, ordo de , ordo de Sclavonia, Bosnian Church, kr'stjani, Christian mysticism, Apocalypse, .

What is dualism?

In the early , a significant number of religious groups emerged that sought to answer very important questions such as "Why does create?"; "Why is this created world imperfect and unjust?"; "Why evil exists?"; "Why does the perfect God create an imperfect world?"; "Why does God allow suffering?"; "Why do we sometimes do good and sometimes evil things?". On all these questions, the defenders of the philosophy of dualism had a very clear answer: "A good God is perfect and He does not create evil, but evil and imperfection arise because of another supreme principle or the Evil God and these two supreme principles are in a continuous dramatic struggle for supremacy". Dualistic religion gave seemingly very logical evidences of their faith in everyday phenomena such as shift of the day and night, where morning represents the "charging" where at the noon the light is at its peak, after which there is a gradual "emptying" where light completely goes away by the appearance of the night, so the phases of the moon for dualists are nothing more than different degrees of "light" that the moon receives at a given moment. According to dualists, God and (Light and Darkness, Good and Evil) are mutually opposed and all events are represented as a result of this dramatic struggle in which human beings play an important role so that their efforts can also contribute to the victory of Good over Evil. Therefore, a dualistic view of the world implies division into the spiritual world of "Light" and the world of "Darkness" that relates to matter. Based on the view that material world implies ignorance and forgetfulness, the cosmos is represented as an evil place operated by the "evil creator" with his assistants or "rulers", which are in fact, the personification of the planets in the cosmos.1

Dualist and their religious communities can be divided into two groups: moderate and extreme dualists. The difference between them is quite obvious and to a large extent relates to the important question when evil as the second supreme principle was created? For moderate dualists, evil arose later because it was initially only one supreme principle: the Good or God, but due to certain errors of God's subordinate beings evil emerged that created evil material world, thus managing to detain fragments of the Good (soul) in material bodies. Therefore, according to this group of dualists, Evil did not exist from the very beginning but later, which is also the main characteristic of the so-called moderate dualists, which we call the "Gnostics". Moderate dualists or "Gnostics" emerged in the , although they will have a renewal with the so-called "Neognosticism" where we will have great amount of different religious sects of which the most famous are Messalians ("those who are praying") and their Greek name was with the same meaning. The Messalians fully dedicated themselves to prayer, refused to work and lived from begging. Their community consisted of men and women, thus it was recorded they slept on the streets in the hot summer months as an expression of their Gnostic contempt for the world, not wanting to own a place or a permanent place to live. We can find out more about their doctrine in the book "Asceticus" which probably originated from heterodox

1 Kurt Rudolph, :The Nature and History of Gnosticism, 1987, 22. Gnostic legends.2 They believed that every man and woman had the burden of 's sin within themselves. According to them, the only "cure" against the very core of evil in man is an intense prayer that needs to be continued until all connection and sympathy with the material world around us disappears. They believed that after some time spent in prayer, the demon would leave the person through saliva or would disappear like smoke which is a sure sign of the Holy Spirit's entry into the person. It is also important to point out the Messalian doctrine that Satan before the "Fall" was God's eldest son. Here we have an evident legacy of Gnosticism, according to which evil does not exist from the original time as a separate principle, but its existence comes later due to "errors" which Messalians make moderate dualists. The second wave of Messalian expansion occurred in the 10th century and their communities were recorded in from where they most likely have strongly influenced the Bogomils in Bulgaria where we have a clear overlap and a mixture of Neognostic and Neomanichaean teachings or moderate and sharp dualism.

Ecclesia Bulgariae or the Bulgarian Church was regarded as a Neognostic center of moderate dualism in the Balkans. This church is mentioned for the first time in the notice of the Heretical Council of 1167 and later by Anonim from Lombardy aswell. Under the Bulgarian Church, many historians have confirmed that this is a typical Bulgarian of moderate dualistic orientation.3 The seat of this church is not entirely clear, as some researchers are locating it in northern Bulgaria and others in . According to Rački, center of Bulgarian heresy was in Trnovo and we have information about this church from the 13th century when its elders and teachers are mentioned.4 For extreme dualists, Evil is here from the very beginning and the two supreme principles have been equal since the beginning of time. In this way, extreme dualists gave a simple answer to the question why God would create anything imperfect or evil simply claiming that is because of second supreme principle or Evil God. The "Manichaeism" was extreme dualist sect attributed to the founder (216-274). According to the Manichaean tradition, twelve years after the first "" given to him by an al-Tawm, Mani received the second one in which God reveals that he is a prophet and that his mission is to show how Manichaeism is the culmination of all religions.5 Mani believed that he was Paraklit whom

2 Ibid. 52. 3 Dragoljub Dragojlović, Bogomilstvo na Balkanu i u Maloj Aziji, Bogomilstvo na pravoslavnom istoku, Beograd 1982, 35. 4 Franjo Rački, Bogomili i patareni, Golden marketing-Tehnička knjiga, Zagreb 2003, 29. 5 Brakke, Gnosticism: From Nag Hammadi to the of Judas, The Great Courses, 2015. DVD. promised to send to his followers and that he was the last prophet. Manichaean myth is extremely complicated and its central theme is the struggle between Good and Evil or Light and Darkness that lasts to this day. According to Mani, Evil is real because it has existed since the very beginning of the existence of the world. Precisely this belief makes dualism extreme, since according to Manichaeism, God has not truly created evil, because evil or darkness has always existed as the second supreme principle. Manichaeans believed that pain and suffering were actually created as a consequence of "detention" of the light in the material world in which we live. Mani states that in all of us there is a war between Good and Evil or Light and Darkness, where the light of our souls is fighting the darkness of our bodies. So Manichaean church was created as the place where the Light is conquering the Dark or where the Light is "saved" from the Darkness. Manichaeans were organized in five rows and divided into two groups: Electi and the Listeners. The relationship between these two groups represented the core of the Manichaean activity through the Middle Ages. The entire mission of the Manichaean Church was related to the continuity of the liberation of the Light and the Manichaeans were actually convinced that they could see this process of separating the Dark and the Light daily.

Speaking of the medieval Neomanichaeism, we should primarily mention the dualistic sect of the Paulicians whose name originates from the "followers of St. ". Their respect for the apostles were expressed to such an extent that they changed names of their leaders so that they can bear those that apostolic disciples had. The key doctrine of Paulicians refers to the extreme opposition between the Good and the Evil God, therefore this sect is considered to be the follower of Neomanichaeism or the extreme dualism despite certain disagreements about this with modern researchers. They did not believe in and were iconoclasts, refusing to use images in a religious ceremony. Their church organization was based on the work of the so-called prophets and apostles. Under their jurisdiction, there were so-called "associates" (synechdemoi) who formed a sort of religious council and "notaries" who kept religious books and organised their gatherings. Interestingly, the Paulicians kept quite normal and legitimate to hide their religious identity for fear of persecution, so many of them on outside lived like ordinary Catholics. Many modern researchers perceived as an attempt to revive early in its original pure form and they percieve Paulicians as God-fearing people who respected the Gospel and apostles, refusing all irregularities and deviations that are seen at the time with their ideological opponents. The first Paulician community was formed in Kibossa in in the 7th century. This heretical movement began to spread to the Balkans twice, 754. and 757. when the Byzantine Emperor Konstantin V. Kopronim settled them in Thrace. Two hundred years later, the Byzantine Emperor moved Paulicians from Armenia to Thrace in order to defend the northern border of the Empire. According to some researchers, these migrated Paulicians along with Massalians became a major intermediaries of "heretical" ideas from Central Asia to the Balkans and had a decisive influence on the emergence and development of early Bogomilism.6

Under the Neomanichaean order of extreme dualists in the Balkans there is Ecclesia Drogometiae. This church is mentioned under different names7 but today most often two names are used. The first name is the ecclesia Drogometiae found in the notice of the Heretic Assembly held in 1167, while the second name for this church was given by Rainer Sacconi in the form of ecclesia Dugunthiae. Many sources under this church do not imply a particular form of religous organization, but a specific form of teaching, so the original sources count "heretics from Drugonthiae, Drogometiae or Drogovethie" to a group of extreme dualists.

Who were the Bogomils?

Bogomilism appeared in Bulgaria and Macedonia within a wider religious-social and dualist- oriented movement that manifested itself in multiple currents. It should be noted that Bogomil movement should not be seen as an isolated phenomenon, but as a syncretistic creation in which we have a mixture of various parts of the older dualistic heritage, primarily Gnostic Messalianism and Manichean Paulicianism.8 It can be said that the Bogomilism at its initial stage was closer to the Paulicianism because it contained the elements of the Paulician ideological and religious practice close to the extreme Neomanichaen dualism. However of all heretical movements, Bogomilism was most often identified with Neognostic Messalianism, so Kedrin mentioned in 1060. that in Thrace there were many Messalians also called Bogomils. Of our interest is also the work "Against the Messalians or Bogomils" which explicitly speaks of "the

6 Ivo Pilar, Bogomilstvo kao religiozno-povijesni te kao socijalni i politički problem, Zagreb 1927, 29. 7 D(r)ugonthiae, Drugouthiae, Dugunthiae, Dugmuthiae, Drugutia, Dugoutia, Drogometiae, Dorgovetis, Dorgovethi etc. 8 Pilar. Bogomilstvo, 30. multitudinous heresy of the Messalians or Bogomils".9 We can say that distinctive Slavic form of mixing Paulicianism and Messalianism represents essence of Bogomil movement. This thesis of the double Paulician-Messialian determination of Bogomilism is generally accepted today in historical science.10 Gnosticism has much contributed to practice and religious speculations of Bogomils. This connection and influence can best be noticed in the dualistic teaching of Bogomils, according to which all the bodylike appearance of Evil is in contrast to the divine nature of the soul which correspond to the old Gnostic dualistic tradition according to which soul is of divine origin and body is the "tomb of the soul".11 Bogomilism also accepted Gnostic soteriology and eschatology, so there is no doubt that the Bogomil myth of Adam's creation from the spark of light was taken directly or indirectly by Gnostics.12 On the example of Bogomil cosmology, one can clearly see that the members of this sect were divided into those Bogomils who propagated moderate cosmological dualistic teaching and those who propagated extreme dualism. As far as extreme dualistic orientation is concerned, Bogomil cosmology was on the one hand based on the teaching that there are always two and two created worlds, while on the other hand there was a moderate Bogomil dualistic belief that there had always been only one divinity that created from itself the Christ and Satan, Good and Evil. In their opinion, Satan created all the visible world and the first man, while Christ revealed to man the way of salvation.13 This is followed by Bogomil eschatology based on the need for liberation from the power of the , who as the creator and embodiment of Evil, is the absolute enemy and the foreign element in the human being and because of that it have to be replaced by the Holy Spirit in the liberated human soul. In addition to cosmology and eschatology, the backbone of the Bogomil teachings are also theology and . As far as Bogomil theology is concerned, it is based on the belief in a primordial "Good God" or "Heavenly Father" which is perfect, while the Bogomil christology is related to Jesus as the Son of God, which is actually the "emanation" of the Father. The Bogomils also challenged the Virgin Mary's status, believing that Jesus could not have a material body, but God've cast the word "" that descended into the world and entered the Virgin Mary into her ear and she later found Jesus in the cave.14 In accordance with

9 Ibid, 30. 10 Dragojlović, Bogomilstvo na pravoslavnom Istoku, 56. 11 Dimitri Obolensky, The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism, 2004, 66. 12 Dragojlović, Bogomilstvo na pravoslavnom istoku, 39. 13 Vasil Zlatarski, Istoriя na bъlgarskata dъržava prez Srednite vekove, 1972, 49. 14 Pilar. Bogomilstvo, 31. their basic teachings, the Bogomils rejected all Christian symbols, ceremonies and secrets and only recognized the New Testament. In particular, they rejected , , splendor in churches and they considered famous Hagia to be the of Satan. They hated the cross, calling it an object of shame, which is for them a symbol of Christ's suffering: "In relation to the cross of our Lord ... they say, how can we kneel under that, when on it crucified the Son of God? The cross is the enemy of God ... If one kills a king's son with a piece of wood, is it possible that this piece of wood would be a fond to the king?"15 More information on the Bogomil heresy is found in the 10th century " Against the Heretics" written by Cosmas the Priest. "The Sermon" is written in a polemic and often sharp tone and its and comprehensive description of the Bogomils is of great importance for the study of the Bogomilism. After a brief introduction about older , Cosmas writes: "In the years of the righteous Tszar Peter appeared a Bogomil who first began to preach the heresy in the land of Bulgaria." Cosmas mentioned the Bulgarian priest Bogomil only at the beginning of "The Sermon" and except the information that he lived in the time of Tsar Peter we do not know anything else about him. "The Book of Boril" also mentioned that priest Bogomil have preached "Manichaean heresy" during the time of Tsar Peter and there he was cursed along with his disciple . Only much later, a Russian document from the 16th century speaks of the priest Bogomil as the author of heretical books in Bulgaria. Nevertheless, these exceedingly scarce news were sufficient for a large number of researchers to declare priest Bogomil as the founder of the Bogomilism in Bulgaria, sugesting that the priest's name was derived from the Slavic words "bog" and "mio". Allegedly these two words from which came priest Bogomil's name, resulted in the creation of a distorted form "bogumili" as a determinant for the followers of this heresy.16 However, it is very likely that the name of the Bogomil heresy did not originate from the priest Bogomil, but that priest is itself named after the heresy which existed before him and which was named after the Slavic words "bog" and "pomiluj".17 This is supported by the fact that Cosmas and patriarch Theophylactos did not mention Bogomils as followers of priest Bogomil, which proves that he was not the creator of heresy, but only one of its more famous teachers from the last years of Peter's rule. The name of the Bogomil heresy became more widely known thanks to "The Panoplia Dogmatike" by Euthymios Zygadenos and "The " by

15 Obolensky, The Bogomils, 47. 16 Dragojlović, Bogomilstvo na pravoslavnom istoku, 40. 17 Obolensky, The Bogomils, 48. Anna Comnen. Therefore, it should be noted that terms such as "Bogomil", "Bogumil" or "Manichaen" was used for heretics in general, although many who have used these terms and wrote them down knew very superficially the character of these communities, thus making certain damage to modern historiography because medieval "heretical terminology" was based mostly on arbitrary conclusions of people who did not know or did not want to know more about these communities, which they simply called "heretics".

What is mysticism?

Mysticism can be defined as a distinctive view of religion (Christianity, , Judaism) and as a reaction to rigidity and formality of religous external practice.18 Mysticism represents the aspiration for something greater than the external relationship to religion and God. It is not against formal , but on the contrary gives it a full meaning.19 Therefore, it is noted that many communities of mysticism, including the Bosnian Church, respected all "outer" ceremonies but in one "internal" way. It is an internal or "true" version of faith and the communities of mysticism consider themselves better than external "institutional" religous communities. Here we have direct or "true" relationship towards faith and God, therefore it is not surprising that in Bosnian Church's sources, the Bosnian "kr'stjani" are calling themselves "true believers" and their faith the "true faith". Mysticism is an attempt to express the "true" consciousness of God's presence freed from every mediaton by creating a mystical union with God ("unio mystica" in Christian and Jewish mysticism, "tawhid" in Islamic mysticism). The experience of undivided unity and "true" consciousness freed from mediation is the intercultural essence of mysticism. The main goal of the mystic is closeness with God achieved through the mystical experience of oneness, union, imitation, conjunction or immersion (in Bosnian Church mystical formula syn Christo/kr'stjani: in Christ; strojnici: those who are merged/joined in Christ). It is interesting that the symbols in mysticism are universal and we can find the motifs of "spirals", "spheres", "dance" ,"merging", "marriage", "vertical line" and "Tree of Life" in Christian, but also Islamic and Jewish mysticism. These are also all dominant symbols on stećak tombstones reflecting the unique philosophical and theological form of mysticism. The mystics in most cases lived

18 Anthony J. Steinbock, Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience, Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion, 2007, 92. 19 Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (The Presence of God), 2004, 15. together within certain monastic communities among the broad religious group, having the great religious and political influence. In other words, medieval mysticism was not strictly individual phenomenon but it was related mostly to life within the monastic community.20 Therefore it is proved that the Bosnian Church was a distinctly monastic church which had a great social and political role in the country. Mystics from different religious traditions often have more similarities among themselves than with "ordinary believers" within the same confession. This was especially evident in the Middle Ages between Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism.21 Therefore, there are serious indications that such a symbiotic relationship occurred in in the 16th century between the Sufi Islam and Bosnian Christianity (the Bosnian Church) on the shared foundations of mysticism and the "inner" view of religion. This also explains why despite centuries of strong resistance to Catholicism and in Bosnia, there is a gradual but massive voluntary acceptance of Islam which came to the country in the form of Islamic mysticism (Sufism).

In mysticism, special attention was devoted to detailed study of authoritative religious texts as well as their allegorical symbolic meaning, which led many mystics to be declared heretics and subjected to the .22 For Christian mystics many Biblical texts have a deeper philosophical significance and many communities of mysticism have become a real threat to the official church because of their persistent claim that only their faith is a "true faith" and that only they are "true believers". Here we have a between dogmatized Christians with the literal reading of the and Christian mystics with the allegorical reading of the sacred text. Therefore, for Christian mystic the Bible is not just a text that speaks of God, but it is God Himself who speaks, or it is not just the text that speaks of the world, but the inspired text is the created world because it contains something from God in every word and every letter. 23 Therefore, mystics are engaged from the very beginning in the sacred text which is of the utmost importance and the key to understanding God and the created world, because every word has allegorical deeper meaning which recognizes only the one who is part of the mystical community.

20 Ibid, 32. 21 Steinbock, Phenomenology and Mysticism, 38 22 Ibid, 51. 23 Luke Timothy Johnson, Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, The Great Courses, 2013. DVD. This may also be the key to understanding the persistent condemnations of the directed towards the Bosnian Church in relation to their alleged "rejection" of the New Testament, although sources within the Bosnian Church clearly indicate that the Bosnian "kr'stjani" were using it intensively. They read and explained the New Testament in a different way (in the context of their "Bosnian faith") which was based on the allegorical symbolic reading of the sacred text. Such is the belief in "resurrection of the body" after death found in the Bible which for mysticism does not refer literally to the resurrection of the material body (what the medieval Catholics and Orthodox believed), but the spiritual body (the soul). Thus, among the belonging to the Bosnian Church extremely interesting are two very damaged parchment fragments from Monteprandone in . Sante Graciotti was able to read certain segments within the manuscripts relating to the defense of the "Bosnian faith" where it followers emphasizes and defends the faith in the resurrection of the soul and not the material body as literally writes in the New Testament.24 In support of allegorical or symbolic understanding of the Bible goes the existence of the domestic that is most read of all books of the New and throughout the Middle Ages (especially in the West).25 Visions we find there are mysterious and suitable for many alternative and symbolic interpretations, so the "Apocalypse of Jesus Christ" is the only prophetic book in the New Testament laying the ideal foundation for the allegorical interpretations of often very mystical themes and symbols that we find there. Various "" within the "Apocalypse" imply visions which usually have symbolic meanings. Thus, the meaning of numbers, characters or parts of the body are of special significance. The followers of the Bosnian Church apparently could not resist the mysterious power of the "Apocalypse" which they carried around everywhere and which was like a gospel for them. Even more direct proof that "Apocalypse" was of great significance for the Bosnian medieval man are religous texts of "kr'stjani" where the "Apocalypse" assume the special place in: Krstjanin Radoslav's , Hval's manuscript and Marciana manuscript.26 In all three manuscripts "Apocalypse" has a prominent place and in Hval's and Marciana manuscript it is located immediately behind the Gospel while it is the main content in the krstjanin Radosav's manuscript. The "Apocalypse" is the most widely read text in Bosnia and in

24 S. Graciotti, I frammenti bosniaci di Monteprandone edizione e interpretazione. Roma : Ricerche slavistiche, 1995. Vol. 42. 25 Josip Hamm, Apokalipsa bosanskih krstjana, Zagreb, 1960, 29. 26 Ibid, 30. Hval's manuscript unlike the Eastern and Western churches it is immediately located after four .27

Mysticism also appears more often in communities where we have conflicts and disorder, therefore some historians consider it to be "an attempt to enrich the spiritual armor of a community that is affected by chronic insecurity or rapid and inexplicable social change." The emergence and development of mysticism is generated in communities where we have disorder, repression, deprivation of political, economic or religious expression. Thus, the waves of mysticism seem to correspond to external pressures, with compulsory disagreement with established institutional religious authorities and doctrines.28 Considering the position of medieval Bosnia at the crossroads of many religious, political and economic interests, it is unnecessary at all to talk about the scale of destructive external influences or the need for people to "protect" themselves by creating a special religious and political identity in the form of Bosnian Church that was a link that held the country together.

Who were "kr'stjani"?

In an anonymous tract at the beginning of the 13th century we find the first data on the existence of three "heretical churches" in the Balkans that had a significant influence on "heretics" from Italy and : Ordo de Drugonthia, ordo de Bulgaria and Ordo de Sclavonia.29 We have already pointed out that ordo de Drugonthia represented a Neognostic church of moderate dualism and that ordo de Bulgaria was Neomanichaean church of extreme dualism. The third church which was doctrinologically and organizationally completely different from the first two was the "Ordo Sclavoniae" for which is proven by comparative analysis with other Latin sources that corresponds to the Bosnian Church. The reason why in the 13th century we have a series of Latin sources that speak of these three "heretical centers" is because of their increased doctrinological influence in , northern Italy and southern France which is reflected in the spread of "heretical" learning and support to its sympathizers from outside. However, only

27 Mak Dizdar, Stari bosanski tekstovi, Sarajevo : Bosanska riječ, 2012, 42. 28 Parrinder, Mysticism in the World's Religions, 188. 29 The use of the term "heretic" or "heretical" in Latin sources should be seen primarily as a general guideline which warns the reader about communities that are doctrinologically, organisationally and politically separated and opposed to the official Catholic Church. "Ordo Sclavonia" became a state church, which will further deepen and strengthen relations with the local Bosnian nobility and most likely with the Bosnian rulers aswell. The reason for the survival of Ordo Sclavonia or Bosnian Church should be sought precisely in its unique religious and doctrinological identity. Bosnian Church had a great deal of compatibility and symbiosis with the domestic nobility, which can not be said for the other two orders which due to their dualist beliefs were opposed to the nobility. The above three orders or churches, although they are altogether referred to as "heretics" by their ideological opponents, that does not mean that they shared the same teachings, rules, or organisation, but most likely they had great differences regarding their philosophy, theology and soteriology. The identification of these differences between the three churches mentioned above is crucial in order to solve the great confusion in historiography caused by Latin sources who observed religious situation in the Balkans extremely uncritically with pre-prepared formulas of condemnation.

Although we can not rely on the credibility of Latin sources regarding "heretical" orders in the Balkans, they give us some useful general information that are not "pre-formulated" such as that the teachings of Ordo Sclavoniae came to Bosnia from and It is very likely that the other two "heretical" orders teaching also came fom this important center of the in the 11th or 12th centuries. Ecclesia Sclavoniae or Bosnian Church as opposed to the other two "heretical" churches was not dualistic and therefore did not follow a moderate or extreme variant of dualism. This claim is accepted among the serious scientific circles, since domestic sources are leaving no reason to doubt that the Bosnian Church did not follow dualistic concepts on the foundations of Gnosticism, Manichaeism and Bogomilism. Carefully examining the Bosnian Church material, its theological formulation within texts and documents, the organizational hierarchy and the religious symbolism on the stećak tombstones, we come to the conclusion that the Bosnian Church in its essence is an extremely "monastic" church following Christian mysticism which is based on the strong foundations of philosophy, theology and the theurgy of Christian .

DUALISM VS. MYSTICISM? Gnosticism / Manichaeism / Bogomilism vs. Christian Neoplatonism ordo de Drugonthia / ordo de Bulgaria vs. ordo de Sclavonia - Two eternal divine principles: Good and Evil -Everything that exists comes from one God (God of Light and God of Darkness); duality. who is the omnipotent first principle or the "One"; oneness. -The war between the Good and the Evil, the -God is everything and we have the oneness of Light and the Darkness, where the Light of our all that exists in God, so the relationship souls are fighting the Darkness of our bodies. between Good and Evil is seen as a relationship between existence and non- existence. God is the ultimate "Goodness" and evil is the "non-existence" or the deficit of "Goodness" which is not because of some evil principle or other deity, but is most often explained as a consequence of the decision to turn back from "Goodness" or eternal spiritual life in favor to material worldly pleasures after which the "soul" loses its "direction" and the true image of the "whole"; therefore monastic life (in the Bosnian Church: "kr'stjani") is superior to the worldly life (in the Bosnian Church: "mirski" or "wordly" people). -"anti-cosmic" view of the world, which -"pro-cosmic" view of the world that is implies a negative evaluation of the cosmos essentially good; mystics admired nature and and the visible world together with its creator, the cosmos (the moon, sun, planets) because of counting them into the world of Evil and their characteristics such as beauty, harmony Darkness. and integrity. This picture of the cosmos was much more accessible to religious traditions because the world is presented as one good place because it also "imitates" the eternal spiritual world. -dualists oppose all power and forms of -mystics are very often involved in political government, man should avoid any kind of and social life of the community (the sources secular activity and generally abstain from indicate that the members of Bosnian Church participating in everyday matters. and their leaders were deeply involved in various aspects of life within the Bosnian medieval state). - they put God and the world in direct -unity through our essential connection with opposition, emphasizing our "deviance", God in a form of "mystical union" of all that "distance" and "disconnection" with God due exists in God. to our "fall" into the material world. - Any material creation is a mistake that results -material world is a reflection of the "Good" in pain and suffering; making material objects spiritual world and man has the task of of any kind and the acquisition of material imitating this "Goodness" to the fullest possible possessions is the propagation of evil and this extent in this material world ("Dobri practice should be avoided to the greatest Bošnjani"/"Good "). The mere extent. existence of Bosnian hiža monasteries and the stećak material culture represents a fundamental contradiction with the basic foundations of dualism. The term "kr'stjani" (from the Latin word Christianus/Christiani) was embraced especially by monks since the term was used at the time of the Early Church.30 The mystical experience of "being in Christ" (syn Christo or kyrio) implies the identification of a believer with Christ, which we find so often in the texts of the apostles John and Paul, which is directly based on the Platonic philosophy of imitation, which is also the basis of mysticism.31 The whole "kr'stjani" life is imitation of Christ (Phil.7.2.) and unity with God in Christ, "kr'stjani" community of believers especially accomplish in the next life where the resurrection of Christ automatically entails the resurrection of the community of believers in Him because they are in a state of solidarity (Phil. 1:21; Gal. 2:20). Since we can not see God as the First Principle, Christ is the only way we can have access to the vision of God as the main goal of mysticism. Since in Christ we have the interweaving of divine and human nature, there is hope that our human nature can be transformed into a divine, not only through Christ, but through all those who have submitted their lives according to Christ's rules and commandments.32 Proudly carrying the name "kr'stjani" by the Bosnian monks and hierarchy of the Bosnian Church bothered the Catholic Church. Papal legate Ivan de Casamaris met with representatives of the Bosnian "kr'stjani" in Bilino Polje and asked them to call themselves "brothers in the future" so that they would not do wrong to other Christians. From this it is evident that in the very name "kr'stjani" we have a special and direct internal connection between the Bosnian monks and Christ himself, which again diminishes all other religious communities such as the Catholic Church in which such a special relationship has not been established. According to the statement from Bilino Polje, problem with the name was allegedly resolved when Bosnian representatives promised that they would no longer be called "kr'stjani" but brothers.33 However, it is known from the Bosnian and Dubrovnik sources that this never happened and that Bosnian monks continued to use the old name "kr'stjani" because it in the best way determined their Christian teaching and religious identity founded in mystical Christology. The connection between "kr'stjani" and Christ is best represented through the love allegory within the biblical "Song of Songs". "Song" represents the covenant of love between Christ ("Groom") and the redeemed soul ("Bride") through the metaphors of marriage or

30 More about examples of usage and meaning of the term see in: Rječnik JAZU. 31 McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 55. 32 Ibid, 55. 33 Pejo Ćošković, Crkva bosanska u XV st, Sarajevo : Institut za istoriju, 2005, 38. mystical union where we have the connection of agape (love directed toward God) and eros (love directed towards human beings) through Christ. Since the connection between the "kr'stjani" and Christ is realized within the "Kr'stjani Church" which is the Body of Christ, this connection is best represented through the love allegory we find in "Song of Songs". It is an important and significant element of the Bible and represents an allegory of love, where Christ is the center and all-linking principle of the wholeness of revelation contained in the Bible.34 The entire intellectual and moral life of the "kr'stjani" is defined by Christ, therefore discovering Christ in the Bible is the key to understanding the meaning of the sacred text and that was of crucial importance for every Christian mystic.

Conclusion

The general belief that the Bosnian Church followed Bogomilism is still largely accepted in society, although this theory is outdated and discarded in serious scientific circles involved in the religious history of medieval Bosnia. Popularization of modern scientific findings regarding religious and doctrinal affiliation of "kr'stjani" contributes to the removal of the Bogomilism myth in Bosnia and opens free space for serious new research on this subject in the future.The paper explains the dualistic view of the world, which implies the division of the principle of "Light" (Good God) and the principle of "Darkness" (Evil God), as well as the main difference between the moderate (Gnostics) and the extreme (Manichean) dualists in relation to the question was the Evil God created later or was there from the very beginning of time. Studying dualism in the Balkans, it is important to distinguish Neognostic (Ecclesia Bulgariae) and Neomanichaean (Ecclesia Drogometiae) teachings and their important influence on the occurrence of Bogomilism in Bulgaria and Macedonia where various parts of the older dualistic heritage are crossed. Comparative analysis of basic Bogomil teachings and preserved domestic sources within the Bosnian Church led us to conclusion that the followers of the "Bosnian faith" did not follow any of the main principles of dualistic Bogomilism and that Latin sources used the term "Bogumil" selectively and with the pre-prepared formulation of condemnation. Carefully examining the Bosnian Church' sources, its theological formulations in the texts and documents, organizational hierarchy, the titular names of its members and religious symbolism on the stećak tombstones, we come to the conclusion that the Bosnian Church is one extremely "monastic" church, the follower of Christian mysticism formed on the strong foundations of philosophy and theology of Christian Neoplatonism. The shared teachings of Christian mysticism and the "Bosnian faith" are accomplished through an internal, direct or "true" relationship towards faith and God where through the allegorical interpretation of the Bible we have realization of mystical union with God or Christ (kr'stjani: syn Christo/in Christ; strojnici: immersed/joined in Christ).

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