Hierarchy classification:

1. top of the aat hierarchies
2. Associated Concepts Facet
3. Associated Concepts (hierarchy name)
4. [religions and religious concepts]
5. religions (belief systems, cultures)
6. Abrahamic religions
7. Christianity
8. Christian sects

Anotations

Scope note:

Dualistic Christian sect founded in Armenia and eastern Byzantine Empire in the mid-7th century by an Armenian named Constantine. Other than a brief period when it found favor with the iconoclast emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries, the sect was persecuted and it consequently allied itself with Muslims. The sect was particularly influenced by the dualistic beliefs of Marcionism and of Manichaeism, which recognize an evil God and a good God with the former being the creator and ruler of this world and the latter of the world to come. While Paulicians honored the gospel according to St. Luke and the letters of St. Paul, they rejected the Old Testament, the letters of St. Peter, and the sacraments, worship, and hierarchy of the established church. The Paulicians influenced the 10th-century neo-Manichaean Bogomils. Small Paulician communities were found in the early 19th century in Russian-occupied areas of Armenia.