Qatari heresy. The Cathar religion, the death of the Cathars and the Cathar castles

As is commonly believed in modern European historiography, the word "Cathars" in relation to the representatives of this movement was first used in 1163 by the Rhineland cleric Ekbert from Schönau.

When I was a canon in Bonn, I often argued with them with my brotherly soul (unanimis) and my friend Bertolf and paid attention to their mistakes and methods of defense. I learned a lot of things from those who were with them at first, and then left ... These are people who in Germany are called "Cathars", in Flanders "Fifla", in France "weavers", because many of them prefer this craft ...

Eckbert combined the previously common Latin name cattari (fr. catiers, that is, "cat-worshipers" - because of the rituals that allegedly existed among heretics involving cats) with the Greek καθαρος , thereby associating them with the Novatian movement that existed in the era of early Christianity, who called themselves "kafars" (from the Greek. καθαροί - "clean, undefiled").

The term was later often used in documents of the Inquisition, from where it passed into the first historical studies dedicated to the "Albigensian heresy". Despite the fact that the word "Cathars", in fact, was a dismissive nickname, it has long been entrenched as the main name, along with "Albigensians". In addition to these two, the names “Manicheans”, “Origenists”, “Fifla”, “Publicane”, “Weavers”, “Bulgarians” (Fr. bougres), "Patarens".

History

Origins and origins

Catharism was not a fundamentally new worldview that emerged in the Middle Ages. Theological views, later characteristic of Catharism, can also be found among the first teachers of Christianity who were influenced by Gnosticism and Neoplatonism (for example, Origen of Alexandria).

The first researchers, relying mainly on the anti-heretical works of Catholic theologians, followed their authors by looking for the roots of the Qatari doctrine in Eastern influences, especially in Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, drawing a direct line of origin of the Cathars from Mani through the Paulicians and Bogomils. Accordingly, catharism was considered an initially non-Christian phenomenon that took root on the basis of European Christianity.

Currently, after the discovery of a large number of new sources, these views are being revised. Most modern researchers (J. Duvernois, A. Brenon, A. Cazenave, I. Hagmann and others) consider catharism to be one of the many, but unique Christian movements that emerged simultaneously in Western and Eastern Europe during the Millennium. This movement was represented by various communities, not necessarily related to each other and sometimes differing in doctrine and way of life, but represented a kind of unity in the field of structure and ritual, both in time frames - between the 10th and 15th centuries, and in geographic - between Asia Minor and Western Europe. In Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, such communities include the Bogomils. The Bogomils of Byzantium and the Balkans, as well as the Cathars of Italy, France and Languedoc, were one and the same church.

The Qatari texts are characterized by the absence of references to the texts of non-Christian religions. Even in their most radical positions (for example, on dualism or on reincarnations), they appeal only to Christian primary sources and apocrypha. Cathar theology operates with the same concepts as Catholic theology, "now approaching, now moving away in their interpretation from the general line of Christianity."

The first medieval mentions

Expectations of the end of the world, which were first predicted in 1000, then in 1033, as well as the obvious crisis of European Christianity, raised hopes among the people for a renewal of religious life. This period includes both the reforms sanctioned by the papacy (see the Cluny Reform) and unofficial (heretical) attempts to realize the ideal of the apostolic life. Already in the first monastic chronicles of the Millennium epoch, along with descriptions of various disasters, there are reports of "heretics, sorcerers and Manicheans."

Eastern Europe

The earliest evidence of the Bogomils in the Byzantine Empire dates back to the 10th-11th centuries, and the Bogomils in them look like brothers of Western heretics, who from the 12th century have been called Cathars. The Cathars themselves, according to the testimony of the Western European monk Evervin of Steinfeld, claimed that their tradition was preserved from ancient times by their brothers in Greece, from which they themselves have adopted and continues to this day.

Western Europe

In the midst of the movement for spiritual reform in the 11th century, at the same time in many regions of Western Europe, spiritual movements appeared, organized into monastic communities based on the Gospel, denying the legitimacy of the hierarchy of the Roman Church, a number of its dogmas (for example, about the human nature of Christ) and sacraments ( marriage, the Eucharist). Since these movements also practiced baptism by the laying on of hands, characteristic of the Cathars, historians consider them to be proto-Cathars.

The various spiritual trends of the 11th century had many similarities. They refused to baptize small children, denied the sacrament of confession and the sacrament of marriage, which was just then introduced by the papacy. They also rejected the efficacy of church ordinances if the priest performing them was in a state of sin, and also criticized the cult of the Crucifixion as an instrument of execution.

Other sources of the time speak of the burning of the publicans in Champagne and Burgundy, the Fifla in Flanders, the Patarens in Italy, and they claim to be "horribly vile sects of weavers or Arians" in the South of France, sometimes called the Albigensians. There is reason to believe that all these names refer to the same type of organized Christian communities, which the dominant Church called "heretical."

Churches of European Cathars

Occitania and France

The Occitan bishoprics of the Cathars of the 12th century arose on the territory of two large feudal formations: the Count of Toulouse (vassal of the King of France) and the union of Viscountries located between Barcelona and Toulouse and united by the Trancavel family (Carcassonne, Beziers, Albi and Limoux). The count and the viscounts of these lands did not show much zeal in pursuing heresy. In 1177, Count Raimund V, sincerely hostile to heretics, wrote to the Sito chapter that he was not able to overcome heresy, because all his vassals supported it. His son Raimund VI (-) was friendly towards heretics. The Trancaveli dynasty for a long time rendered heresies even greater assistance. Finally, the Counts de Foix went even further, directly engaging in the Qatari Church.

For several generations, the balance of power in the Occitan lords was in favor of the Qatari churches, and this excluded any persecution. Before the crusade against the Albigensians, catharism swept in the west the territories from Quercy to Gourdon and Agenois ("Church of Agen"); in the center - the territories of Toulouse, Laurague and County Foix ("Toulouse Church"), in the north - Albijua ("Church of Albi"), in the east - Cabarda, Minervois and Carcassonne ("Church of Carcassonne"), extending even to Corbières and to the sea ... In 1226 a fifth bishopric was established, in Razes (Limou region), which was formerly part of the "Church of Carcassé".

Northern Italy

The documentary evidence at the disposal of historians about the Italian Cathar environment reveals four characteristic features of this environment:

Organization of Church Life in Qatari Communities

Clergy

From the very beginning, catharism was characterized by sharp anti-clericalism (criticism of the so-called "prejudices of the Roman Church" - the cult of saints, relics, images, etc.). However, criticizing the “apostasy of the Roman Church,” they never argued that the Church and its hierarchy were not needed at all.

Like the Catholics, the Cathar Church was divided into clergy and laity. Lay people (lat. credentes, or "believers") did not have to renounce their previous Catholic habits or affections, but they recognized the spiritual authority of the Qatari teachers (lat. perfecti, or "perfect").

The Qatari clergy combined the mixed functions of priests and monks. It included both men and women. Like the Catholic priests, the Qatari perfect preached, provided the ritual of salvation for souls and the remission of sins. Like monks, they lived in communities, observed fasting and abstinence and ritual hours of prayer.

Just like the Catholic bishop in his diocese, the Qatari bishop was the source of the priesthood, from his hands came the consecration of community members. The believers baptized (sanctified) by the bishop led a life dedicated to God and believed that they had the power to forgive sins. This power was believed to be transferred from "some 'kind people' to others." In the texts of the Cathars, it is the essence of the "order of the Holy Church." The Cathars believed that their bishops passed on this tradition to each other in a straight line from the apostles.

At the head of every Qatari Church was a bishop and two of his assistants (coadjutors) - the "elder Son" and "younger Son", also ordained by the bishop for this rank. After the death of the bishop, the "Elder Son" became his immediate successor. The territory of the bishopric was divided between a certain number of deacons: they played an intermediary role between the episcopal hierarchy and the communities located in the villages and towns that they regularly visited. Bishops themselves rarely lived in large cities, preferring communities of small towns. According to historians, such a church organization resembles the structure of the early Christian Church.

Communities

Like Catholic monasteries, Cathar monastic houses were places where neophytes were trained to lead a religious life. There they studied the catechism and their religious duties for two or three years, after which they made the necessary vows, and the bishop ordained them by the laying on of hands. The baptism (dedication) ceremony was public, and believers were sure to attend.

Preachers and preachers regularly left their communities to fulfill their religious duties, and also visited relatives and friends in the city or its surroundings.

The female and male communities of the Cathars lived by their own labor. Some of these communal homes were like modern hospices, where believers received spiritual guidance and comfort, and provided themselves with what they called a “happy ending” that brought soul salvation.

Male monastic communities were ruled by "elders", women - by "priorities" or "rulers". Cathar monastic houses were not closed and often had factories with them. They were very numerous in the cities, actively participating in local economic and social life.

Many people in Languedoc considered the Cathars "good Christians who have great power to save souls" (from testimony before the Inquisition).

Qatari monks followed the "Rules of Justice and Truth" and the gospel precepts. They avoided killing (including killing animals), lying, judging, and so on. All this was considered a grave sin, devaluing the Spirit that descended on them. The sinner had to repent and go through again Consolament - a sacrament, the name of which comes directly from the common Christian term "Comforter" (Paraclete).

The flowering of catharism

Montsegur

They themselves, with their lives and morals, in practice demonstrated the purity and rigorism of the apostolic way of life, which even their opponents admitted. The Cathars were supporters of absolute non-violence, they refused to lie and swear. Many people of that time, as can be seen from the protocols of the Inquisition, perceived them as poor itinerant preachers carrying the Word of God. Studies of the 70s - 80s of the XX century show catharism as a literal adherence to the commandments of Christ, and especially the prescriptions of the Sermon on the Mount. As modern scholars believe, this evangelism was one of the central points of catharism.

However, the dualistic Christianity of the Cathars was an alternative religious construct. They did not call for clerical reform and a "return to the Scriptures." They declared their desire to return to the purity of the Church of the Apostles, which was not the "usurping Roman Church" but their own, the "Church of the Good Christians."

However, for all their harsh criticism of the institution of the Catholic Church (in their terminology - "synagogues of Satan"), the Cathars were not inclined to manifest hostility towards the Catholics themselves. There is a lot of evidence of peaceful communication between believers of both religions in those areas where Catharism had a significant influence. Local coexistence between heretical monks and Catholic clergy generally proceeded without clashes. It follows from the documents of the Inquisition that the believers, in their mass, considered themselves to belong to both churches at once, believing that both of them were more likely to save the soul than one.

On the contrary, where the Catholic Church dominated, the Cathars often became the target of persecution. The attitude of the Roman hierarchs towards them was sharply intolerant. Local rulers, loyal to the pope, sought to capture them and "whoever could not be taken away from madness, they burned with fire."

In the first decades, the persecution was rather episodic. While the condemnation of heretics was a matter for the episcopal courts, the Church hesitated in its choice of methods of repression. Initially, executions took place according to the sentences of the secular authorities. But gradually councils and pontifical bulls paved the way for the Church's lawmaking in the field of heresy.

At the end of the 12th century, the confrontation between Catharism and Catholicism intensified. The papacy, alarmed by the spread of heresy, increased the pressure, which provoked a retaliatory intensification of criticism from the Cathars. The Pope sent Cistercian missions to Toulouse and Albi in 1178 and 1181, but the missionaries did not benefit from the assistance of the local rulers and got practically nothing from them in the pursuit of heresy.

The crusade against the Albigensians is characterized by cruel reprisals against the civilian population (Beziers in 1209, Marmande in 1219), as well as huge mass fires where heretics were burned - in Minerva (140 burned in 1210), Lavora (400 burned in 1211 ). However, the local population, for whom the war was of both religious and national liberation nature, actively resisted the crusaders, supporting their legitimate counts.

In 1220, it finally became clear that the attempt to plant the Catholic dynasty of Montfort in Toulouse and Carcassonne had failed. The Cathar communities, which had been severely damaged by the crusaders at first, began to gradually rebuild.

In 1226, Louis VIII of France, son of Philippe-Augustus, decided to restore himself to the Mediterranean counties given to him by Montfort, and he himself led the French army, moving it against Raymund Trancavel, Raymund VII of Toulouse and their vassals. Despite fierce resistance in some regions (especially Lima and Cabarete), the royal army conquered the Languedoc. In 1229, the Count of Toulouse, having submitted, signed a peace treaty, ratified in Paris.

Final defeat of the Qatari movement

The inhabitants of Carcassonne are expelled from the city during the siege by the troops of Simon de Montfort

In 1229, the king finally won the war declared by the pope, and the latter took advantage of the king's victory: from that time on, the Church was given complete freedom of action. The secular rulers - the defenders of the heretics - were deprived of their lands and property in accordance with the decisions of the Lateran Council of 1215 and the Council of Toulouse in 1229. The Cathar communities took refuge underground. However, they remained very numerous. To protect themselves from reprisals, they organized a secret network of resistance based on social and family solidarity.

In the treatises and rituals of the Cathars, there is no mention of the successive transmigration of souls from one bodily prison to another. Only the anti-Qatari controversy and testimony before the Inquisition contains information on this topic. However, the theoretical texts of the Good Christians claim that contrary to what the Catholic clergy teach, God does not create infinitely new souls in order to stop time one day and judge everyone, in the state and age in which He finds them. On the contrary, a certain number of divine souls fell into the slavery of bodies, and now they must "awaken" from this world, before hearing the call to leave it and return to their heavenly homeland.

As already mentioned, they believed in the universal salvation of all divine souls who fell into the slavery of bodies during the creation of the evil world. They believed that by moving from body to body after their fall, these souls will receive the experience and the opportunity to cognize Good, realize their belonging to another world, and will be called by God to reunite with Him.

The means of Salvation, according to catharism, was evangelical, but at the same time radically different from the atoning sacrifice of the Catholic Christ.

The Cathars believed that, in fact, the Son of God came into this world not to atone for original sin by His sacrifice and death on the cross, but simply to remind people that their Kingdom is not of this world, and to teach them a saving sacrament that will forever deliver them from evil and from time. This is the sacrament of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, transmitted by Christ to His apostles.

Ritual and cult

The “good news” of the Gospel, from the point of view of the Cathars, consists in the enlightenment of the Word of Christ, in the awakening of souls who receive salvation through baptism by the laying on of hands, about which John the Baptist said: “He who follows me is stronger than me ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire ". Christ breathed this Spirit into the apostles, who passed it on to their disciples.

Thus, in the Qatari interpretation of the Gospel, the main meaning belonged to Pentecost, and not the Passion. Most likely, this interpretation is more archaic. Both in the interpretation of the sacred texts by the Cathars, and in their liturgy, researchers find a very great similarity with early Christianity.

The sacrament of consolament, practiced by the Cathars, served simultaneously as baptism, and initiation, and communion, since baptism with water alone was absolutely not enough. Consolidation also gave forgiveness of sins, entry into the path of repentance, the sign of the power to bind and untie, which marked the Church of Christ. Bestowed on the dying, this sacrament was also unction. And, finally, uniting the soul with the spirit, it was like a spiritual, mystical marriage. The only thing that was not in it was the Transition.

Baptism by consolament was a collective, public ceremony open to all. Accompanied by the Elder or Priorissa, the neophyte would come to the bishop's house “to surrender to God and the Gospel”, to adopt the tradition of the Our Father prayer, the most important prayer, which should be repeated regularly at a certain time and a certain number of times, and then accept the Book of Scripture itself. Further, after a long ceremony, the bishop and all the Good People present laid their right hands on the head of the neophyte and recited the first verses of the Gospel of John. The consolament for the dying was a similar ritual: it was given by two Good People in the presence of the dying person's family and friends.

Documents show that Good Christians were often present at the table of believers. At the beginning of each meal - exclusively vegetarian - the elders of the Good Men or Good Women blessed the bread, broke it, and distributed it to everyone present. This ritual, observed since the Millennium, replaced the Eucharist with it. They did this in memory of the Last Supper, but they did not think that they were eating the Body of Christ when they broke bread; for them, these words from the Gospel symbolized the Word of God that spreads throughout the world.

If any believer met a Good Man or a Good Woman, he greeted them with a threefold request for blessing, or, on the Occitan, a melhorier, and prostrated before them three times in obeisance.

At the end of every ritual ceremony, Christians and believers exchanged the kiss of the world, men among themselves, and women among themselves. Rigoristic vows of chastity actually prohibited any physical contact with persons of the opposite sex for Qatari monks.

Assessment of the historical significance of catharism

For a long time in the historical literature, both in a significant part of domestic and foreign, the assessment of the historical role of the Qatari movement was unequivocally negative, although in the Soviet tradition, for example, in the TSB, there was a tendency towards a positive assessment of catharism as a movement of resistance to the dictates of the medieval papacy, which is extremely negatively assessed in the USSR. The main source on which the researchers relied were the treatises refuting this medieval heresy - the anti-heretical Sums compiled by theologians of the 13th century. Catharism was viewed as an anti-church, in many ways barbaric heretical teaching that threatened to undermine the position of Christianity in Europe. Since the 80s of the twentieth century. after the works of the Oxford historian Robert Moore, a revision of attitudes towards catharism was outlined. Today, most Western scholars of catharism are leaning towards a more positive point of view. According to their version, the Cathars, with their teachings about love and rejection of violence, were an attempt by European society to return to the origins of Christianity (thereby anticipating the Luther Reformation) and thereby create an alternative to Catholicism, which was in a deep crisis.

From the same position, the significance of other major religious movements of the Middle Ages that preceded the Reformation - the Waldensians, Beguins, etc., is assessed. However, it is catharism that is considered the longest and most successful of such attempts. The violent suppression of this attempt, which took on the character of a devastating war and the ensuing brutal repressions, is regarded as one of the first precedents in the history of Europe for the triumph of totalitarian ideology.

Contemporary historiographical discussion of catharism

Until 1950, the study of this issue was under the exclusive influence of theologians. This circumstance led to disagreements in assessing the origin of catharism. Some researchers (including L.P. Karsavin and the author of one of the first major monographs on the history of the Inquisition, Henry Lee) consider catharism to be a "neo-manicheism" that came to the West from the non-Christian East: "The essence of the Cathar dogma is completely alien to Christianity." This position is shared by some modern researchers. However, the development of the archives of the Inquisition led to a revision of the prevailing opinion among historians.

Catharism is one of the religions that shaped human consciousness, strengthened hearts and inspired a huge number of people, from Asia Minor to the Atlantic Ocean, to decide to devote themselves to God, in the period from at least the 10th to the 15th century ... one of the forms of Christianity and relies - even if we consider it a distortion - on the Word and ceremony, which we ourselves have absorbed with mother's milk.

These researchers emphasize numerous common features inherent in both catharism and the whole European culture in the 11th-12th centuries. The most serious contribution to the refutation of the "traditional" vision of this heresy as a branch of Eastern Manichaeism was made by Jean Duvernois. In his book "The Religion of the Cathars" for the first time, thanks to the study of the complete collection of various types of documents, an exhaustive analysis of the historical data of the medieval religious phenomenon called catharism was carried out. The author came to the conclusion about the exclusively Christian context of Catharism, and since then this conclusion has dominated among modern historians.

Cathar terminology

Adoremus See Prayers

Adoratio A term from the inquisitorial vocabulary, a contemptuous designation for a ritual of asking for a blessing, called melhorament or melhorier by the Cathars. Focusing on the kneeling gesture that accompanied this rite, the Inquisition tried to ridicule this practice, calling it a rite of "veneration" of heretics by believers.

Albanenses This was the name given by the Italian Dominicans to members of the Decenzano (near Lake Garda) Qatari Church, supposedly founded by a bishop named Albanus, who at the end of the century was arguing with another Qatari bishop named Garatus. In the 13th century, the followers of Albanus professed the so-called absolute dualism of the Bishop of Bellesmanza and his Elder Son Giovanni de Luggio, the author of the Book of Two Beginnings, who also became bishop around 1250.

Apareilement or Aparelhament An Occitan word for "preparation" and is a ceremony of collective repentance, like a monastic confession. This confession was conducted monthly by deacons in the male and female monastic communities of the Cathars. This ceremony, also called servici, is described in detail in the Lyons Ritual of the Cathars. For those wishing to know more, Jean Duvernoy's La religion des cathares, in two volumes, is recommended.

Caretas or Kiss of the World Known from the Qatari rituals, the practice meaning "reconciliation, forgiveness" is a common Christian practice in the Middle Ages. The kiss of peace concluded the liturgical ceremonies of the Cathars. Testimonies before the Inquisition describe this ritual in detail, speaking of a "kiss on the face" or even "on the lips": "With this kiss, the Perfect give us peace, kissing twice on the lips, then we kiss them twice in the same way." Quoted from Le dossier de Montsegur: interrogatoires d'inquisition 1242-1247. Testimony of Jordan de Pereil. Between the Good Men and the Good Women, who were forbidden by the Rules to touch each other, the kiss took place through the Gospel Book.

Consolamentum or Consolament The only sacrament practiced by the Cathars and called by them "the holy baptism of Jesus Christ." It was about spiritual baptism (as opposed to John's "water baptism"). It was carried out by the laying on of hands, according to a ritual similar to the early Christian one (without material components such as water and oil). It was also called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, complementing the baptism with water and descending upon the Apostles at Pentecost. For the Cathars, this baptism performed by the true Christian Church also had the meaning of repentance, since it washed away sins and saved the soul. It was performed on the neophytes and meant their entry into the Christian life (order), and for believers - the salvation of the soul and a happy ending (unction). The liturgical words and gestures of this rite are described in the most detailed way in the three Qatari Rituals that have come down to us, as in the protocols of the Inquisition. “... Now, desiring to become perfect, I receive God and the Gospel, and I promise never again to eat meat, eggs, cheese, or fatty foods with the exception of vegetable oil and fish, until the end of my life I no longer swear or lie, and not renounce the faith under pain of fire, water, or other means of dying. After I promised all this, I read Pater Noster ... When I said the prayer, the perfected laid the Book on my head and read the Gospel of John. At the end of the reading, they gave me a Kiss Book, then we exchanged a “kiss of the world”. Then they prayed to God, doing many knees. " Quote from The Papers of Montsegur: Testimonies of the Inquisition 1242-1247 Recorded from the words of Guillaume Tarju de la Gagliol.

Convenenza An Occitan word meaning "agreement, contract." In times of war and persecution, beginning with the siege of Montsegur, the Convenenza became a treaty between the Good Man and the believer, allowing the Consolamentum to be accepted even if the person was speechless. Jordan du Ma was wounded and was comforted "by the barbican, which was near the car. The Good People, Raymund de Saint-Martin and Pierre Sirvain, came there and gave the wounded man consolation, although he had already lost the ability to speak ..." Inquisition 1242-1247 ”Recorded from the words of Azalais, widow of Alzue de Massabrac.

Endura An Occitan word meaning fasting. The inquisitors of the XIV century used it, trying to accuse the last Good People of encouraging suicide among believers who received consolation on the bed of death, but survived. However, researchers believe that this was a misinterpretation of ritual fasts on bread and water, which the newly baptized were supposed to observe, according to the Rules. There are only a few examples of hunger strikes undertaken by Good People caught by the Inquisition, who refused food and water so as not to speak during interrogations, because the inquisitors preferred to burn them alive.

Melhorament or melioramentum An Occitan word meaning "striving for the best." The Good Man's greeting to the believers, presented by the inquisitors as worship. When meeting a Kind Man or Kind Woman, the believer knelt down and prostrated before them three times, saying: "Good Christian (Good Christian), I ask the blessings of God and yours." On the third time he added: "And pray for me to God that He will make me a Good Christian and lead to a happy ending." A monk or nun replied to this: "Accept the blessing of God," and then: "We will pray for you to God, that He will make you a Good Christian and lead to a happy ending."

Our Father or the Holy Word, the fundamental prayer of Christians among the Cathars. They spoke it daily during the Hours, during the Consolament, before meals, etc. Their version did not differ from the Catholic one except for one word: instead of “our daily bread,” they said “our ever-present bread” - a variant going back to the translation of St. Jerome and emphasizing the symbolic meaning of bread, which meant the Word of God. In addition, they used the Greek doxology "For Thine is the kingdom and power and glory forever and ever", upon which they based their faith in universal salvation.

Poor Catholics The Cathars were not the only ones who rebelled against the clergy, who accumulated wealth despite the evangelists' words. Duran Huesca was the first creator of the Poor Catholics Order. After the Council in Pamier in 1207, having met personally with Saint Dominic, Durand Huesca thus helped to establish the Order of Poor Catholics. They built in 1212 two monasteries for brothers and sisters at Elne (Roussillon). The main task of the order was to constantly preach, like the Perfect ones, live in poverty, pray and sleep on bare boards ... Durand Huesca is known today for battles with heretics, and especially for his work "Liber contra Manicheos".

Believers According to Everwin de Steinfeld, in the middle of the 12th century, in the Rhinelands, believers represented the middle stage between the common faithful (or listeners) and the heretical clergy of Christians or the elect. By the laying on of hands, the believer became a neophyte. In the Languedoc of the XIII century, the Inquisition already distinguishes only between simple "believers in heretics", that is, people listening to the science of heretics. In fact, the believers were a mass of the faithful who “believe in what the heretics say and believe that heretics can save their souls,” the Inquisition registers say. At the beginning of the 14th century, Pierre Autier defined a believer as a person who ritually greets Good People and asks for their blessing.

Grail In medieval novels, the Grail is associated with the cup in which the blood of Jesus was collected and which Joseph of Arimathea brought to Western Europe. She became the object of the mystical searches of the Knights of the Round Table in such works as: "The Legend of the Grail" by Chretien de Trois, "Percival" by Wolfram von Eschenbach and others. This myth about the Grail, based on Celtic mythology, was used by Cistercian preachers. At first glance, there is no visible and indirect connection between the legends of the Grail and catharism. The book Crusaders Against the Grail by the German scholar Otto Rahn (published in 1933) was the first to raise this issue. In the book by Gerard de Seda, "The Mystery of the Cathars", there is still evidence of such a connection.

Sins As in all monotheistic religions, sin is a violation of divine law by man. For the Christians of the Cathars, this divine law was clear prescriptions and commandments of the Gospel: their sins were murder, adultery, violence, lies, theft, backbiting, oath, condemnation ... Any of these sins meant for a Christian, that is, for a Cathar monk, the immediate loss of the Christian states. “Freed from evil” through the baptism of repentance, the Consolament, and having received grace, the Cathar Christian should not have sinned, because evil could no longer work through him. A kind Person who lied, killed, swore, or knowingly touched a woman had to go through re-baptism and re-obedience.

Two Churches Pierre Autier and his companions preached the gospel even more clearly and reasonably than their predecessors. Severely persecuted, they associated themselves with Christ and His apostles, whom the world persecuted before them, and called the persecuting Roman Church evil and deceitfully Christian. Echoing with the heretics of the Rhine in 1143, Pierre Autier preached: "There are two Churches, one is persecuted, but forgives, and the other owns and skinns." Everyone at that time understood what the Church of Christ is, and what is of this world.

Giovanni de Luggio Mentioned since 1230 as the Elder Son of the Qatari Bishop of the Decenzano Church. Perhaps originally from Bergamo. He is one of the most learned clerics of his day. He wrote a theological Qatari treatise known as the Book of Two Principles, from which only an abridged version has come down to us. This book was primarily written against the theses of the Qatari hierarch Didier of the Concorezzo Church and is the pinnacle of Qatari theological reflection on the problem of evil. Giovanni de Luggio's treatise was written according to all the rules of medieval scholasticism of the middle of the 13th century. He became bishop of the Decenzano Church around 1250, but disappears from the records several decades later, possibly falling victim to the repression of the 1270s in Italy.

Deacons In the Qatari Church, the deacon was the first step in the hierarchy. Cathar deacons were required to visit religious houses for administration and disciplinary meetings in specific territories within each Church. Deacons also performed ceremonies of collective confession and repentance in men's and women's religious houses. Religious houses, where the deacons themselves lived, played the role of hospice houses. All Cathars' deacons were men, there are no sources that indicate the existence of deaconesses.

House (monastic) Monks and nuns among the Cathars lived in small women's and men's communities in religious houses, reminiscent of Catholic monasteries, but with free entry and exit. There they were engaged in physical labor and jointly practiced rituals and sacraments. Some of these houses also served as hotels, hospitals or hospices; some had the specific functions of schools or seminaries. There were many such monastic houses open to the public in the small towns of Languedoc. Most of them consisted of only a few people, sometimes members of the same family. Widows, married women who have given birth to many children, girls without dowries - in a word, all those who decided to devote themselves to God and achieve salvation as Good Women - lived in communities that were by no means isolated from the world, together with their sisters, mothers, aunts, sometimes in the same house where other relatives lived, and sometimes in a neighboring house.

Bishops of the Cathars Cathar communities were run by consecrated bishops in the manner of the early Church. Like Catholic bishops, they had the right to consecrate those who entered the Christian community in their Church or bishopric. As bishops in the Orthodox Church, they were also monks. The first heretical bishops are mentioned in the Rhinelands between 1135 and 1145. At the end of the 12th century, the bishop of the Church of France, Lombardy and the four bishoprics of Languedoc are already known. Over the bishops there was no centralized authority like the papal, all the Churches were local.

Epiphany The sacrament, which in all Christian Churches signifies the entry into the Christian life. In the early Christian Church, baptism also meant repentance and remission of sins. The act of baptism was then twofold: by water (by immersion) and by the Spirit (by the laying on of hands). Later, the Roman Church divided these two rites, keeping the name of baptism behind water baptism, and retaining the laying on of hands for the consecration of bishops. At the same time, the meaning of baptism with water narrowed down to washing away the original sin, and more and more often it began to be performed on young children. In the Qatari rituals, the Consolament, the laying on of hands, is always called baptism: "Holy baptism of Jesus Christ", or "spiritual baptism of Jesus Christ." The Cathars apparently retained the features of the baptism characteristic of the early Church: they laid hands only on adults who were aware of what was happening and asked for forgiveness for their sins. For them, this was the only true baptism, because water baptism or “baptism of John” performed in the Roman Church was, from their point of view, insufficient for salvation. In addition, they believed that only their baptism was "based on the Scriptures."

Cemeteries The Cathars did not attach any importance to the sacralization of the body and did not believe in resurrection in bodies. Therefore, they did not have any special burial rites. If circumstances allowed, then the dead in heresy were buried, like everyone else, in ordinary parish cemeteries. If the local priest forbade doing this, then the Qatari community had its own cemetery, such as in Lordat or Puiloran. In the days of the underground, the dead were buried wherever they could: in the garden, on the banks of the river, etc. The Inquisition often exhumed these corpses and burned them.

Younger Son and Elder Son These hierarchical ecclesiastical degrees are first mentioned in the Languedoc in 1178. The Elder Son and the Younger Son are the coadjutors of the Qatari bishops. They immediately received episcopal consecration and their functions could be equated with episcopal ones. Therefore, after the death of a bishop, the Elder Son became a bishop, and the Younger Son became the Elder Son. Then a new Younger Son was chosen and ordained. Further, the hierarchy of the Cathars consisted of deacons, and the lowest level was the Elders and Priorisses (leaders and leaders of men's and women's religious houses).

Prayers Like all Christian monks, the Good People used to say prayers at certain times throughout their lives. First of all, it is Benedicite (Benedicite, parcite nobis, Bless and have mercy on us), Adoremus (Adoremus Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, Amen - Let us worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen). Further, this is the fundamental prayer of the Cathars, Our Father, which Christ taught the Apostles. Ordinary believers, not yet freed from evil, did not turn to God directly with this prayer, but their request for a blessing during the Melhorament ritual was a prayer. But As follows from the "Register of the Inquisition of Jacques Fournier", (volume 2, pp. 461-462, in the XIV century, believers said the following prayer: "Holy Father, Right God of the good in spirit, You who never lied, did not deceive, did not doubt And out of fear of death that awaits us all, we ask You, do not let us die in a world alien to God, for we are not of the world, and the world is not for us, but let us know what You know and love what you love ... "

Clothed with the Holy Spirit The terms hereticus indutus, heretica induta ("clothed heretic") are very often used in the archives of the Inquisition to refer to the Qatari monks in order to distinguish them from ordinary believers. Perhaps this stems from the fact that before the persecution, the Good People wore special black or dark monastic robes. But believers often called Good People "clothed with the Holy Spirit."

Vows The three monastic vows pronounced by the Cathars are: chastity, poverty and obedience. These are vows common to all of Christianity, based on the precepts of the Gospel. Also to this were added the vows of communal life and abstinence, the vow to observe the monastery hours ("liturgical hours"). For the Cathars, practically entering the Christian life meant complete dedication, self-giving.

Pentagram Geometric figure in the form of a pentagon, into which a five-pointed star is inscribed. Esotericists of the twentieth century are groundlessly looking for Qatari symbolism in it.

Bee The Cathars wore an engraving of a bee on buckles and buttons, for the Perfect ones it symbolized the secret of fertilization without physical contact.

A fish Like all Christian monks who lived in fasting and abstinence, the Cathars abstained from meat, but not on certain days, but in general, with the exception of fish.

Family (marriage) Like many heretics of the 11th-12th centuries, the Cathars rejected the sacrament of marriage, which was very late introduced by the Roman Church (11th century), not wanting to confuse the divine sacrament and a purely material and social act. Conception and birth in itself, without the sacrament, according to Christian terminology, is a "bodily sin." The Cathars said that "to know bodily your wife as well as another woman is one and the same sin." They also believed that embryos in the womb are simply bodies, that is, bodily shells formed by the devil that do not yet have a soul. On the other hand, the birth of children, according to the catharism system, was necessary for the “awakening of the world”, so that souls could enter other bodies after death and gain a new chance for salvation until all the fallen angels can finally return to the Kingdom. Some Dominican inquisitors spread rumors that the Cathars could lead humanity to extinction by forbidding the birth of children. However, only Qatari monks and nuns took vows of absolute chastity, and their believers got married (including marriages in the Catholic Church) and started families. They had numerous children, as did their Catholic neighbors. There are cases when marriages were concluded between Qatari believers through the mediation of a Good Man, but without any sacrament, only as a mutual agreement. The Cathars did not consider virginity to be of great value. Most of them became monks and nuns in adulthood, after they had already started a family and put their children on their feet. By entering into religious life, often at the same time, they freed each other from marriage vows. True marriage, which is mentioned in the Gospel (“what the Lord has united, let man not part”), for the Cathars was the spiritual marriage of the soul and the Spirit that occurs during the Consolament, reuniting the heavenly creation, torn apart after the fall.

Death From the point of view of the Cathars, the physical death of the body was a sign of the devilish nature of this world. On the whole, this fit into their idea of \u200b\u200bthe transitory nature of everything visible and served as proof that the evil creator is incapable of creating anything "stable and permanent." Death was evil and came from evil, God in no case can punish it or send it to death. That is why the Cathars rejected the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The Good People condemned both murder and the death penalty. On the contrary, they made vows to face the martyrdom courageously after the example of Christ and

The heretical movement of the Cathars (Cathars means pure in Greek) swept Western and Central Europe in the 11th century. It apparently came from the East, directly from Bulgaria, where the predecessors of the Cathars were bogomils, very common there in the X century. But the origin of these heresies is more ancient. Among the Cathars there were many different denominations. Pope Innocent III numbered up to 40 sects of the Cathars. In addition, there were other sects that, in many of the basic provisions of their teachings, converged with the Cathars: Petro-Brusians, Henrikians, Albigensians. They are usually grouped together gnostically-manichean heresies. Further, in order not to unnecessarily complicate the picture, we will describe the whole complex of common ideas, without indicating each time in which of these sects certain views played a large role.

The basic worldview of all the branches of this movement was the recognition of the irreconcilable opposition of the material world, the source of evil, and the spiritual world, as the concentration of good. The so-called dualistic Cathars saw the reason in the existence of two gods - good and evil. It was the evil god who created the material world: the earth and everything that grows on it, the sky, the sun and stars, as well as human bodies. A good god is the creator of the spiritual world, in which there is another, spiritual sky, other stars and the sun. Other Cathars, called monarchical, believed in one good God, the creator of the world, but assumed that the material world was created by his eldest son, Satan or Lucifer, who had fallen away from God. All trends agreed that the hostility of the two principles - matter and spirit - does not allow any confusion. Therefore, they denied the bodily incarnation of Christ (believing that His body was spiritual, only having the appearance of materiality) and the resurrection of the dead in the flesh. The heretics-Cathars saw a reflection of their dualism in the division of Holy Scripture into the Old and New Testaments. They identified the God of the Old Testament, the creator of the material world, with an evil god or with Lucifer. They recognized the New Testament as the commandments of a good god.

The Cathars believed that God did not create the world out of nothing, that matter is eternal and the world will have no end. As for people, they considered their bodies to be the creation of the evil principle. Souls, according to their ideas, did not have a single source. For most of humanity, souls, like bodies, were the product of evil - such people had no hope of salvation and were doomed to perish when the entire material world returned to a state of primordial chaos. But the souls of some people were created by a good god - these are angels, once seduced by Lucifer and imprisoned in bodily dungeons. As a result of a change in a number of bodies (the Cathars believed in the transmigration of souls), they must get into their sect and there they receive liberation from the captivity of matter. For all mankind, the ideal and the ultimate goal, in principle, was universal suicide. It was thought either in the most direct way (we will meet with the implementation of this view later), or through the cessation of procreation.

These views also determined the attitude of the adherents of this heresy to sin and salvation. The Cathars denied free will. The children of evil, doomed to death, could not escape their death by any means. Those who received initiation into the highest order of the Cathar sect could no longer sin. There were a number of strict rules that they had to obey because of the danger of being contaminated with sinful matter. Their failure to fulfill them simply showed that the initiation rite was invalid: either the initiate or the initiate did not have an angelic soul. Before initiation, complete freedom of morals was not limited by anything at all, since the only real sin was the fall of angels in heaven, and everything else is an inevitable consequence of this. After dedication, neither repentance for the sins committed, nor their atonement was considered necessary.

The attitude of the Cathars to life stemmed from their idea of \u200b\u200bevil spread in the material world. They considered the continuation of the family to be the work of Satan, they believed that a pregnant woman is under the influence of a demon, and every child who is born is also accompanied by a demon. This also explains their prohibition on meat food - everything that came from the union of the sexes.

The same tendency led the adherents of the heresy of the Cathars to a complete withdrawal from the life of society. The secular authorities were considered the creation of an evil god, they should not obey, go to their court, take an oath, take up arms. All who used force were considered murderers - judges, warriors. Obviously, this made it impossible to participate in many areas of life. Moreover, many considered forbidden any communication with those outside the sect, with "worldly people", with the exception of attempts to convert them.

Heretics of all persuasions were united by a sharply hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church. They considered it not the church of Jesus Christ, but the church of sinners, the Babylonian harlot. The Pope, according to the Cathars, is the source of all delusion, the priests are the scribes and Pharisees. The fall of the Catholic Church, in their opinion, occurred during the time of Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester, when the Church, in violation of the covenants of Christ, encroached on worldly power (according to the so-called “ Daru Constantine"). The heretics denied the sacraments, especially the baptism of children, since the children cannot yet believe, but also marriage and the sacrament. Some offshoots of the Cathar movement - the Cotarelli, Rotary - systematically looted and desecrated churches. In 1225 the Cathars burned down the Catholic Church in Brescia, in 1235 they killed the bishop in Mantua. At the head of 1143-1148 manichean sect Eon de l "Etual declared himself the son of God, Lord of all things, and by the right of ownership called his followers to rob the churches.

The Cathars especially hated the cross, which they considered a symbol of an evil god. Already around 1000, a certain Leutard, preaching near Chalon, smashed crosses and icons. In the XII century, Peter of Bruy made fires from split crosses, for which he was eventually burnt by the indignant crowd himself.

Burning of the heretic Cathars. Medieval miniature

The Cathars considered churches to be heaps of stones, and divine services were considered pagan rites. They denied icons, the intercession of saints, prayers for the dead. In the book of the Dominican Inquisitor Reiner Sacconi, the author of which was himself a heretic for 17 years, it is argued that the Cathars were not prohibited from robbing churches.

The Cathars rejected the Catholic hierarchy and sacraments, but had their own hierarchy and their own sacraments. The organizational structure of this heretical sect was based on its division into two groups - "perfect" (perfecti) and "believers" (credenti). The first were few (Reiner has only 4,000), but they constituted a narrow group of sect leaders. The “perfect” clergy was made up of the Cathars: bishops, elders and deacons. All the teachings of the sect were communicated only to the "perfect" - many of the extreme, especially sharply opposed to Christianity, views were not known to the "believers." Only the "perfect" Cathars were obliged to observe numerous prohibitions. They were, in particular, forbidden to renounce their teachings under any conditions. In the event of persecution, they must accept a martyr's death, while the “believers” could go to church for appearance and, in the event of persecution, renounce their faith.

But on the other hand, the position held by the "perfect" in the Cathar sect was incomparably higher than the position of a priest in the Catholic Church. In some respects, it was God himself, and this is how the "believers" worshiped him.

“Believers” were obliged to contain “perfect” ones. One of the most important rituals of the sect was "worship", when the "believers" prostrated themselves on earth three times before the "perfect".

"Perfect" Cathars had to dissolve the marriage, they had no right to touch (literally) a woman. They could not have any property and had to devote their whole lives to serving the sect. They were forbidden to have permanent dwellings - they had to be in constant wanderings or stay in special secret shelters. Initiation into the "perfect" - "consolation" (consolamentum) was the central sacrament of the Cathar sect. It cannot be compared with any of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. It combined in itself: baptism (or confirmation), ordination to the priesthood, repentance and remission of sins, and sometimes the unction of the dying. Only those who accepted him could count on deliverance from bodily captivity: their souls returned to their heavenly dwelling.

Most Cathars did not hope to fulfill the strict commandments obligatory for the "perfect", and hoped to receive "consolation" on their deathbed, which was called "a good ending." The prayer for the sending of a "good end" in the hands of "good people" ("perfect") was read along with the "Our Father".

Often, when a sick heretic who took "consolation" then recovered, he was advised to commit suicide, which was called "endura." In many cases, endura was set as a condition for "consolation." Often, the Cathars exposed old people or children to it, who took "consolation" (of course, this turned suicide into murder). The forms of endura were varied: most often starvation (especially for children whose mothers stopped breastfeeding), but also bloodletting, hot baths, followed by sudden cooling, a drink with crushed glass, suffocation. I. Dollinger, who analyzed the surviving archives of the Inquisition in Toulouse and Carcassonne, writes:

“Those who carefully study the protocols of both of the aforementioned courts will have no doubt that many more people died from Endura - partly voluntarily, partly forcibly - than as a result of the sentences of the Inquisition.”

From these general ideas followed the socialist teachings prevalent among the Cathars. As an element of the material world, they denied property. Individual property was forbidden to the "perfect", but together they owned the sect's property, often significant.

Cathar heretics enjoyed influence in various strata of society, including the very highest. (So, about Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, they wrote that Cathars dressed in ordinary clothes were always present in his retinue, so that in the event of a sudden proximity to death, he could receive their blessing). However, the main preaching of the Cathars was, apparently, addressed to the urban lower classes. This is evidenced, in particular, by the names of various sects related to the Cathars: Populicani ("populists") (some researchers see here, however, a spoiled name pavlikian), Piphler (also from "plebs"), Texerantes (weavers), Poor people, Patarens (from rag pickers, symbol of beggars). In their sermon, they said that a truly Christian life is possible only with a community of property.

In 1023, the Cathars were put on trial at Monteforte on charges of promoting celibacy and community of property, as well as attacking church customs.

Apparently, the appeal for community of property was quite common among the Cathars, as it is mentioned in some of the Catholic writings directed against them. Thus, in one of them the Cathars are accused of declaring this principle demagogically, but they themselves do not adhere to it: "You do not have everything in common, some have more, others less."

The celibacy of the perfect and the general condemnation of marriage is found in all Cathars. But in a number of cases only marriage was considered sinful among heretics, but not fornication outside of marriage. (It must be remembered that "do not commit adultery" was recognized as the commandment of an evil god). Thus, these prohibitions had as their purpose not so much the bridling of the flesh as the destruction of the family. In the writings of contemporaries, the accusation of the Cathars in the community of wives, "free" or "holy" love is always encountered.

“If your right eye tempts you, pluck it out and throw it away from you, for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not all your body should be cast into Gehenna” (Matthew 18: 9)

On the pages of TOPWAR, more than once or twice it has been told about the cruel religious wars that were unleashed in the name of God and for His glory. But perhaps the most illustrative example is the Albigensian Wars in the South of France, launched to eradicate the heresy of the Cathars. Who are they, why did the Catholic Christians consider them heretics, and they themselves called themselves true Christians, as well as about the Cathar castles that have survived to this day, and our story will go today ...
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THE HERESY OF QATARS (part 1)

“Everything has its time and time
of every thing under the sky:
time to be born and time to die ...
a time to hug and a time to shy away from
hugs ...
a time for war and a time for peace "(Ecclesiastes 3: 2-8)

Let's start with the fact that Christianity has long been split into two major streams (in this case, you can not even remember about numerous sects: there were and are so many of them!) - Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and both of them in the past considered each other friend as heretics, and some, especially zealous believers, consider their "opponents" as such now! This schism was long-standing: for example, the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople cursed each other back in 1054! However, the differences of the churches on the issue of a number of church dogmas and, above all, such an important dogma as, for example, the Symbol of Faith, took place at the beginning of the 9th century, and the initiator of such a disagreement was, oddly enough, not the Pope or the Patriarch. and the emperor of the Franks Charlemagne. This is a theological controversy over the issue of "Filioque" - "Filioque" (Latin filioque - "and the Son").

The Gospel of John clearly speaks of the Holy Spirit as coming from the Father and sent by the Son. Therefore, as early as 352, the First Council of Nicaea adopted the Creed, which was subsequently approved by the Council of Constantinople in 381, according to which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. But in the 6th century, at the Toledo local cathedral "in order to better explain the dogma", the Creed was first added with the addition: "and the Son" (Filioque), as a result of which the following phrase appeared: "I believe ... in the Holy Spirit, which comes from the Father and the Son. " Charlemagne, who had great influence over the popes, insisted that this addition be included in the Creed. And it was precisely this that became one of the reasons for the desperate church disputes, which eventually led to the split of the Christian Church into Catholic and Orthodox. The Orthodox Symbol of Faith reads like this: "I believe ... And in the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving Lord, Who comes from the Father" ... That is, the Orthodox Church is guided by the decisions of the First Council of Nicaea. One of the fundamental sacred festivals of Christians is also different - the Eucharist (Greek - expression of gratitude), otherwise - communion, which is held in memory of the last meal arranged by Christ together with the disciples. In this sacrament, the Orthodox Christian, under the guise of bread and wine, tastes the very body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, while Catholics partake of unleavened bread, Orthodox Christians - with leavened bread.

Everything in the world is afraid of time, the last Cathar burned long ago in a bonfire, but the "Cross of Toulouse" is still visible on the wall of a house in the fortress of Carcassonne.

But in addition to the Catholics and Orthodox believers who considered each other heretics, separated at that time from each other by the peculiarities of nature, even on the territory of Europe, within, for example, France and Germany, there were many religious movements that significantly differed from traditional Christianity according to the Catholic model. Especially a lot at the beginning of the XII century. there were such Christians in Languedoc, a region in the south of France. It was here that a very powerful movement of the Cathars arose (which, by the way, had other names, but this is the most famous, therefore we will stop at it), whose religion was significantly different from traditional Christianity.

However, Cathars (which in Greek means “pure”) began to call them later, and their most common name at first was “Albigensian heretics”, after the city of Albi, which was given to them by the followers of Bernard of Clairvaux, who preached in the cities of Toulouse and Albi in 1145 year. They themselves did not call themselves that, because they believed that real Christians were exactly who they are! Following Jesus Christ, who said: "I am the good shepherd," they called themselves "bon hommes" - that is, "good people." It was about a dualistic religion of eastern origin, recognizing two creative divine beings - one good, which is closely related to the spiritual world, and the other evil, associated with life and the material world.

The Cathars rejected any compromise with the world, did not recognize marriage and procreation, justified suicide, and abstained from any food of animal origin, with the exception of fish. This was their small elite, which involved both men and women from the aristocracy and the rich bourgeoisie. She also supplied cadres of clergymen - preachers and bishops. There were even "houses of heretics" - real male and female monasteries. But the bulk of the faithful led a less strict lifestyle. If a person received before death a unique sacrament - consolamentum (Latin - "consolation") - and if he agrees to leave this life, then he will be saved.

The Cathars did not believe in either hell or heaven, or rather, they believed that hell is the life of people on earth, that confessing to priests is an empty matter and that prayer in the church is equivalent to prayer in an open field. The cross for the Cathars was not a symbol of faith, but an instrument of torture, they say, in ancient Rome, people were crucified on it. Souls, in their opinion, were forced to move from one body to another and could not return to God in any way, since the Catholic Church points out the way to salvation for them incorrectly. But, having believed, so to speak, "in the right direction," that is, following the commandments of the Cathars, any soul can be saved.

The Cathars taught that since the world is imperfect, only a select few can keep all the commandments of their religion, and all the rest should only follow their instructions, without being bound by the burden of fasting and prayer. The main thing was to receive before death "consolation" from one of the elect, or "perfect", and so, until his deathbed, no religious morality of the believer mattered. Since the world is so hopelessly bad, the Cathars believed, no bad deed would be worse than another. Again, just a wonderful faith for knights - something like a life "according to concepts", but not according to the law, because in "hell, any law is bad."

How the Cathars instructed their flock can be imagined using examples that have come down to us in the descriptions of Catholic priests: for example, one peasant went to "good people" - to ask if he could eat meat when true Christians are fasting? And they answered him that both on fast and on fast days, meat food pollutes the mouth in the same way. “But you, peasant, have nothing to worry about. Go in peace! " - the "perfect" consoled him and, of course, such a parting word could not but reassure him. Returning to the village, he told what the “perfect” had taught him: “Since the perfect person cannot do anything, then we, imperfect ones, can do anything” - and the whole village began to eat meat during fasting!

Naturally, the Catholic abbots were horrified by such "sermons" and assured that the Cathars were true worshipers of Satan, and accused them of the fact that, in addition to eating meat during fasting, they also indulge in usury, theft, murder, perjury and all other carnal vices. At the same time, they sin with great enthusiasm and confidence, they are convinced that they do not need either confession or repentance. It is enough for them, according to their faith, before death to read the "Our Father" and to receive the Holy Spirit - and they are all "saved." It was believed that they take any oath and immediately break it, because their main commandment is: "Swear and testify perjury, but do not divulge the secret!"

The Cathars wore an image of a bee on buckles and buttons, which symbolized the secret of fertilization without physical contact. Denying the cross, they deified the pentagon, which was for them a symbol of eternal diffusion - dispersion, dispersion of matter and the human body. By the way, their stronghold - the castle of Montsegur - just had the shape of a pentagon, diagonally - 54 meters, width - 13 meters. For the Cathars, the Sun was a symbol of Good, so Montsegur seemed to be at the same time their solar temple. Walls, doors, windows, and embrasures were oriented in it by the sun, and in such a way that only by observing the sunrise on the day of the summer solstice here it was possible to calculate its sunrise on any other days. Well, and, of course, it was not without the assertion that there is a secret underground passage in the castle, which, on the way, branching into many underground passages, permeates all the nearby Pyrenees.

This was a pessimistic faith, divorced from earthly life, but it received a fairly wide response, primarily because it allowed the feudal lords to reject the earthly and moral authority of the clergy. The scale of the influence of this heresy is evidenced at least by the fact that the own mother of Bernard-Roger de Roquefort, Bishop of Carcassonne since 1208 wore clothes "perfect", his brother Guillaume was one of the most ardent Cathar lords, and two other brothers were supporters of the Qatari faith ! The Qatari churches stood directly opposite the Catholic cathedrals. With such support from those in power, it quickly spread to the regions of Toulouse, Albi and Carcassonne, where the most important was the Count of Toulouse, who ruled the lands between the Garonne and the Rhone. However, his power did not extend directly to many fiefs, and he had to rely on the power of other vassals, such as his brother-in-law Raymond Roger Trancavel, Viscount Beziers and Carcassonne, or the king of Aragon allied to him or the Count of Barcelona.

Modern reconstruction of Montsegur castle.

Since many of their vassals were themselves heretics or sympathized with heretics, these lords could not or did not want to play the role of Christian princes defending the faith on their lands. The Count of Toulouse informed the Pope of Rome and the King of France about this, the church sent missionaries there, and, in particular, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who in 1142 studied the state of affairs in the Provencal dioceses and delivered sermons there, which, however, did not have much success.

After becoming pope in 1198, Innocent III continued the policy of bringing the Cathars back to the Catholic Church through persuasion methods. But numerous preachers were greeted in the Languedoc rather cool than joyfully. Even Saint Dominic, who was distinguished for his eloquence, did not manage to achieve tangible results. The Qatari leaders were actively helped by representatives of the local nobility, and even some bishops, dissatisfied with the church order. In 1204, the Pope removed these bishops from their posts and appointed his legate in their place. That in 1206 he tried to find support from the aristocracy of Languedoc and turn it against the Cathars. The seniors, who continued to assist them, began to be excommunicated. In May 1207, even the powerful and influential Count Raimund VI of Toulouse himself fell under excommunication. However, after meeting with him in January 1208, the pope's viceroy was found stabbed to death in his own bed, and this finally pissed off the pope.

Then the angry pope reacted to this murder with a bull, in which he promised to give lands to the heretics of Languedoc, all those who would take part in the crusade against them and in the spring of 1209 declared a crusade against them. On June 24, 1209, at the call of the Pope, the leaders of the crusade gathered in Lyon - bishops, archbishops, seigneurs from all over the north of France, with the exception of King Philip Augustus, who expressed only restrained approval, but refused to lead the campaign itself, more fearing the German emperor and the English king ... The goal of the crusaders, as it was announced, was by no means the conquest of the Provencal lands, but the liberation of them from heresy, and, at least, in 40 days - that is, the period of traditional knightly service, above which the employer (whoever he was!) was already paid!

To be continued...

“In Narbonne, where faith once flourished, the enemy of faith began to sow tares: the people lost their minds, desecrated the sacraments of Christ, the salt and wisdom of the Lord; maddened, he turned away from true wisdom and wandered off to unknown places by winding and confused paths of delusion, along lost paths, turning off the straight path. "

This is how the "Albigensian Story" of the Cistercian monk Pierre de Vaux de Sernay (c. 1193 - after 1218) begins. This author, before starting a story about the crusade against the Cathar heresy, which has been flooded with blood in the Languedoc since 1209, gives brief information about the teachings of the Cathars: “faith” that once flourished is the Christian Catholic faith, which has long been rooted in the south of France; The "delusion" into which the people of Occitania fell is nothing more than the teaching of the Cathars, which almost secretly appeared on this land soon after the beginning of the millennium (the first Cathar heretics were burned at the stake of Orleans and Toulouse in 1022: we are talking about ten canons).

The deepest error, the main mistake of these heretics, according to the Roman Catholic Church, was their dualistic theology, which Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernay expounds as follows:

“The heretics believed in the existence of two creators: one was invisible, they called him a“ good ”God, the other was visible, and they called him an“ evil ”God. To a good God they attributed the New Testament, to an evil God the Old Testament, which they thus completely rejected, with the exception of a few passages inserted in the New Testament, considering them for this reason worthy of being remembered. They considered the [unknown] author of the Old Testament a "liar": in fact, he said about our first parents Adam and Eve that on the day they eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will die a death; however, having tasted the fruit, they did not die as he predicted. These heretics said in their secret meetings that Christ, who was born in the earthly and visible Bethlehem and died crucified, was an evil Christ and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine: she was that woman taken in adultery, which is spoken of in the Gospels. In fact, they said, the good Christ never ate or drank or clothed himself with real flesh: he appeared into the world only in a purely spiritual way, incarnated in the body of St. Paul. That is why we wrote “in the earthly and visible Bethlehem,” because heretics imagined another land, new and invisible, where, according to some of them, the good Christ was born and crucified. They also said that the good God had two wives, Oolla and Oolib, who bore him sons and daughters. Other heretics said that the creator is one, but that he had two sons, Christ and the Devil [...] "

The Qatari preachers really claimed that there were two Gods, a good God, a pure, immaculate spirit, and the God of Evil, whom they called Satan or Lucifer, who created the material and unclean world - the sun, stars, earth, bodies of animals and people; the latter, accordingly, turned out to be a satanic world, and from this it followed that the good God was not omnipotent. As for people (the descendants of Adam and Eve), they were also dual creatures: as creatures of flesh, and therefore material, they were the creations of the Devil, and each of them contained a soul that the good God breathed into each body and which he longed to release, to return her to the heavenly world. Unfortunately, God himself could not free these souls, since the chasm separates the divine spirit from the material world created by Lucifer: and then in order to do this, he created the Mediator, Jesus, who was at the same time His son, His image and the most beautiful, most flawless and perfect of angels (Qatari theologians did not recognize the dogma of the Holy Trinity). Jesus descended into the unclean world of matter in order to free human souls from their carnal prison and return them to heavenly purity; but Satan recognized him as the Messenger of God and wanted to destroy him, which is why the Passion of Christ and the crucifixion of the divine Messenger happened. However, the non-fleshly body of Christ cannot actually suffer or die; having shown the Apostles the way to salvation, Christ ascended to heaven again, leaving His Church on earth, whose soul is the Holy Spirit. However, the Lord of Evil, who remained in the earthly world, continues to lead people onto the path of error: he destroyed the pure Church of Christ and replaced it with a false Church, the Roman Church, which was called "Christian", but in reality it is the Church of the Devil, and what she teaches is the opposite what Jesus taught: she is the unclean beast of Revelation, the Babylonian harlot, while the true and pure Church, possessing the Holy Spirit, is the Cathar Church.

From these theological constructions it follows: 1) that the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church (baptism, communion, marriage, unction) are just material rituals, the traps of Satan; a kind of baptism - just water, a wafer cannot be the body of Christ, this is only dough, the cross should not be worshiped, it should be hated and cursed, since it was an instrument of humiliation and torment of Jesus; 2) that the Blessed Virgin could not be the mother of Jesus, since he never had a body, he, like a good God, is a pure spirit; 3) that the human soul, until the Holy Spirit descended into it, until it received the saving enlightenment that makes a person pure, remains under the power of Satan and passes in each next life into one of the many bodies of people or animals (the doctrine of transmigration shower); 4) that to the one who has become pure, death brings the final deliverance of the soul, and that at the end of time, when all souls are liberated from the Darkness of bodies, Light will again be completely separated and saved from the intolerable dominance of matter. And then the material world will disappear, the sun and stars will go out and the fire will consume the souls of demons: only eternal life in God will continue.

On this confused doctrine of the purpose of the soul was superimposed a set of prayers and rituals known to us under the name of the "Qatari missal", two versions of which, dating back to the 13th century, one in Latin, the other in Occitan, escaped the common fate - the almost complete destruction of everything that was associated with the teachings of the Cathars, after the so-called Albigensian Crusade. The Qatari Church, which taught that marriage is prostitution, denied the resurrection of the flesh and composed, in the words of Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernay, "strange fables", was in fact modeled after the Roman Catholic Church.

It included two categories of the faithful: priests who led an ascetic life full of hardships, and lay people who lived an ordinary life, could marry, engage in some kind of craft, have personal property and only try to live righteously and honestly. The former were called perfect: always dressed in black, they observed impeccable chastity; refused meat, since a human soul could be imprisoned in the body of any animal; They also did not eat eggs, milk, butter and cheese, because all these products were obtained from the sexual activity of living beings, but they were allowed to eat fish. Such a way of life, if led without the slightest deviation, ensured the perfect liberation of the soul after the death of the body. The latter were called believers: they did not seek to imitate the life of the perfect, but hoped that the faith of the latter would bring salvation to them, and had to lead an honest, righteous and worthy life.

Perfect, both men and women, who could be called militant Cathars, were most often itinerant hermits, they went from village to village, from castle to castle and everywhere aroused respect due to their severity, kindness, moral strength and asceticism, because they strictly observed the fasts; their pale, emaciated faces, their thinness, which must be in no way inferior to the exhaustion of the venerable gurus and oriental fakirs, the gentle, quiet voice they preached - in all this the people saw evidence of their holiness, calling them good people.

Those Cathars who remained in the cities led a no less monastic way of life in the communities, settling in special houses, which the hostile part of the population called "houses of heretics"; in such a house there was invariably a large, austere hall with bare walls, most often whitewashed with lime, where the faithful gathered for prayer. The whole furnishings of this hall consisted of a wooden table covered with a white tablecloth, on which lay the Gospel, and another, smaller table, on which stood a jug and a tub for washing hands; white candles were constantly burning in the hall, the flame of which symbolized the flame of the Holy Spirit.

We do not know how the Qatari Church was organized, whose birth and development took place mostly underground. Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernet alone gives us a few and brief information about this at the beginning of his "Albigensian Story":

“The perfect heretics had representatives of authority, whom they called“ deacons ”and“ bishops ”; they were asked to lay hands on, so that every dying person would consider it possible to save his soul, but in reality, if they laid hands on a dying person, no matter how guilty he might be, if only he was able to read Pater Noster, they considered him saved and, using their expression, “comforted” to such an extent that without any penance, without any other atonement for his sins, he ascended to heaven. On this occasion, we had the opportunity to hear the following funny story: a certain believer, lying on his deathbed, received a consolamentum from his teacher through the laying on of hands, but could not read the Pater Noster and gave up his ghost. His comforter did not know what to say: the deceased was saved because he accepted the laying on of hands, but he was cursed because he could not read the prayer! [...] And then the heretics went for advice to a knight named Bertrand de Sessac and asked him how they should reason. The knight gave them this advice and answer: “We will talk about this person and claim that he is saved. As for everyone else, if they don't read Pater Noster at the last minute, we will consider them damned. "

This passage bears witness to the spirit of the times. The people of that era and the generations that followed them were obsessed with the idea of \u200b\u200bsaving their souls after death, and Christians of the Roman Catholic Church had a means to help cope with this persistent anxiety: the death on the cross of Jesus, the Son of man, and his resurrection as the Son of God shortly after the execution was for them a guarantee of eternal life and salvation, provided that these Christians were introduced to the sacraments of the Church during their lifetime (especially and first of all received baptism - a necessary and sufficient condition for a person to be accepted into the fold Church - and then, before death, absolution and unction).

For their part, the Cathars, who argued that Catholic theogony was wrong and that it should be replaced by a dualistic theogony, the same one we briefly outlined above, considered the rites and sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church devoid of any meaning and value. In other words, the Christians whom we will call traditional, in order to distinguish them from the Cathars, who also called themselves “Christians,” were deeply convinced of the truth of the saying “There is no salvation outside the Church (meaning Roman Catholic)” and saw in the adherents of the new Church (Qatari) henchmen of Satan, doomed to burn forever in hell. And vice versa - these latter were no less deeply convinced that their duty in earthly life was to return the lost souls of Christian Catholics to the correct path of the pure religion of the true God - the good God, from which the Ruler of Evil had forced them to turn away.

Except for these scanty information about the heretical teaching of the Cathars and the above-mentioned "Trebnik", several hints at their dogmas contained in the statutes of councils convened in order to fight this heresy between 1179 (III - ecumenical - council in Lateran) and 1246 years (cathedral in Béziers), as well as several sentences passed on to the Cathars by the court of the Inquisition, we know almost nothing about the teachings of the Cathars. But from the texts of the already mentioned chroniclers and from the hints made by two Occitan poets who composed the "Song of the Crusade against the Albigens", it follows that the heresy spread throughout the south of France, from the Garonne to the Mediterranean Sea. These authors unanimously call Toulouse a hotbed of heresy; thus, Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernet, in the very first lines of his Albigensian Story, declares:

“[...] Toulouse, the main source of the poison of heresy, which poisoned the peoples and turned them away from the knowledge of Christ, His true radiance and divine light. The bitter root has grown so deeply and so deeply penetrated the hearts of people that it became extremely difficult to pull it out: the inhabitants of Toulouse were repeatedly offered to renounce heresy and expel heretics, but only a few were persuaded - so much they, having renounced life, became attached to death, so much they were touched and infected with a bad animal wisdom, down-to-earth, devilish, not allowing that wisdom from above, which calls for good and loves good. "

It would be useful to clarify here that Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernet wrote these lines between 1213 and 1218 (deadlines), two centuries after the Cathar heresy appeared in Languedoc; therefore, we can conclude from his words that by this time the Qatari doctrine was widely spread in those parts.

About half a century before the call for a crusade against the Albigens was voiced, in 1145, Saint Bernard himself, sent by the abbot of Clairvaux on a mission to Toulouse, described the state of religion in this area with such bleak words:

“Churches stand without parishioners, parishioners do without priests, priests have lost their honor. Only Christians without Christ remained here. The sacraments are trampled into the mud, big holidays are no longer celebrated. People die in sin, without repentance. Children are deprived of their life in Christ by denying them the grace of baptism. " (Messages, CCXLI)

At about the same time as Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernet was writing his Albigensian Story, the Occitan poet Guillaume of Tudela began writing his Song of the Crusade Against the Albigens, in which the same disturbing tone sounds:

Let's start. Heresy rose like a reptile from the bottom of the seas

(May the Lord strike her with his right hand!),

Has got the whole Albigensian region in the grasp of her claws -

And Carcassonne and Loraguet. Lay down the width of the whole -

From the walls of Béziers to the walls of Bordeaux - traces of her paths!

She stuck to the false believers like a burr,

And there were - I won't lie - all under her heel.

On the other hand, the huge number of areas that fell upon the troops of the crusaders under the leadership of their commander who does not know pity, Simon de Montfort, suggests that the Cathars have settled everywhere south of the Garonne: Pierre de Vaudet-Sernet lists about one and a half hundred points of Occitania, damaged during the Albigensian crusade. The most significant of them (in chronological order) are Beziers, Carcassonne, Castres, Pamier, Lombert, Albi, Limoux, Montreal, Monget, Montferrand, Castelnaudary, Cayusac, Narbonne, Moissac, Castelsarrazen, Otriv, Mure, Marmande, Rodez and, of course , Narbonne and Toulouse, not counting the Provencal cities (Beaucaire, Nimes, Montelimar). In all these cities, where the perfect lived and preached, there were many Cathars, and it can be assumed that because of their appearance, because of the mystery surrounding the "houses of heretics", and also because of their works of mercy and preaching, they attracted attention and must have often aroused the curiosity of the people, thereby arousing the discontent of the local clergy.

Not a single official or secret document has come down to us, in which it would have been a question of the structure of the Qatari Church, except for the already mentioned "Trebnik". However, we know from the writings of Pierre de Vaudet-Sernay and Guillaume de Puyloran that it consisted of two stages: each region had its own Qatari bishop, who was assisted by the "elder son" and "younger son". Before his death, this bishop passed on his episcopal dignity through the ritual laying on of hands to the eldest son, who was replaced in this rank by the younger son, whose duties were entrusted to the new younger son, chosen from among the local perfect. Each city or other major settlement was entrusted with the care of a deacon, who was appointed by the bishop and who was helped by a more or less significant number of perfect, including - it must be emphasized - and perfect women: let's not forget that Occitania was a country of troubadours and courtly love and a woman enjoyed much greater moral independence there than in the French kingdom. At the same time, the very nature of the Qatari religious system of concepts was not combined with the cultural life turned to the outside world, as well as with the gold and luxury of the Catholic Church; the Cathars had no mass, no vespers, no joint prayer, no procession of the cross, no open sacraments accessible to all (baptism, communion, marriage); everything happened with them behind closed doors, in the silence and secrecy of the "houses of heretics," as outsiders used to call them.

As for the Qatari doctrine, it was partially based on the Gospels (but rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, approaching in this matter with the Arian heresy, which was mentioned above), as well as on the teaching of the Apostles and the Manichaeism of the Bogomils; the very modest rituals of the Cathars, associated with the acceptance of a man or woman into the Qatari Church as believers or the transition from the state of a believer to the state of being perfect (or perfect), were subject to strict rules known to us from the set of prayers and rituals of initiation, usually referred to as the "Qatari missal ".

This is how this "Trebnik" describes the rite preceding entry into the Qatari Church:

“If the believer [Catholic] is in abstinence [in anticipation of being accepted into the ranks of the Cathars] and if the Christians [this word was used by the perfect to denote themselves, since they considered themselves the only true followers of Christ, denying this to Catholics] agree to give him a prayer [take him into their ranks], let them wash their hands, and the believers [Cathars who are not perfect], if there are any among those present, will also do so. Then one of the perfect, the one who follows the Elder [the Qatari priest who accepts the admitted to be ordained], should bow three times to the Elder, then prepare the table, and then bow three times again. Then he should say: "Benedicite, parcite nobis." Then the believer must do the melioramentum and take the book [Gospel] from the hands of the Elder. And then the Elder should read him the instruction with the appropriate evidence [read the appropriate passages from the New Testament].

After that, the Elder should say the prayer, and the believer should repeat it after him. Then the Elder must tell him: “We give you this holy prayer, accept it from God, from us and from the Church, now you can say this prayer at every hour of your life, day and night, alone or with others, and never touch neither food nor drink without saying this prayer. And if you do not do this, you will have to repent. " And the believer should answer: "I receive prayer from God, from you and from the Church." Then he must perform a melioramentum and thank, after which the Christians [perfect] will twice perform the prayer with bows and knees, and the believer will do it after them. "

After performing this rite, the neophyte Cathars, who were in the position of ordinary "believers" in the sense that was given to this concept above, continued to lead an ordinary life, trying to live righteously and honestly. Some were engaged in some worthy and profitable craft, which allowed them to provide financial management of the organization, buy and maintain "communal houses" (such houses existed in almost all cities of Occitania, where they served simultaneously as schools, and hospitals, and shelters, and monasteries) , and pay for the work of ordinary people who performed the duties of watchmen, guides or messengers for them. There were others, young people trusted by perfect parents, or converts to the Qatari faith of all ages, who hoped to one day receive the consolamentum and become perfect in their turn. However, with the exception of these militant Cathars, most believers in the cities or villages of southern France lived the same way as Catholic Christians, contenting themselves with attending services and honoring "good people," these stern, black-clad perfect walked all over the region, preaching the Qatari doctrine.

The main rite, a necessary condition for the salvation of the soul, was the consolamentum, a rite that made the believer (or believer) a full member of the Qatari Church - perfect - partly in the same way as Christian baptism symbolically introduces a newborn baby into the Roman Catholic Church, but with the essential difference that for Catara, this rite was not just a symbolic act: it had the power to transform an ordinary person, whose soul remained a captive, imprisoned in the body, into a person in whom the Holy Spirit actually dwells (hence the definition of the rite as spiritual baptism, as it is sometimes called). The soul of a man or woman who received such "consolation" on the day of his or her death avoided transmigration to another body and joined the divine Spirit in heaven, provided that from the day of his baptism the owner of this soul led a holy and virtuous life, that is, without the slightest concessions and without the slightest reservations obeyed the strict rules of the Qatari religion. The believer who received the consolamentum, thanks to this, became a new being, perfect, and his soul calmed down: after the death of the body in which she lived, she will be liberated and will regain the Light that she lost at birth.

And yet, having received the promise of eternal bliss, the soul was in great danger: after this spiritual baptism, the smallest sin of the perfect will turn into sacrilege, and he will lose the Holy Spirit that was in him.

In order to return to the state of perfection, one must again receive the consolamentum. It is for this reason that some believers waited until they were dying in order to be "comforted": then they could be sure that they would not lose in the last moments of their life the benefits of this rite, which, therefore, corresponded at the same time to the Catholic sacraments of baptism (making the baptized Christian, that is, the guardian of the Holy Spirit) and the sacrament (renewing this union with God) with the ordination (turning the layman into a priest) and unction.

The ceremonial rite of "spiritual baptism" took place in the large prayer hall of the Qatari house described above, where the faithful came to pray; all white candles were lit in the hall, they were supposed to symbolize the Light of the Holy Spirit that descended on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, after Christ's Ascension to heaven. The elder of the house first addressed the believer who wanted to become a member of the Qatari Church with an opening speech, reminding him of the supernatural significance of the ceremony, which was soon to be performed. The Qatari Missal has preserved the content of this speech for us:

“Peter [supposed name of the believer], you want to receive spiritual baptism, through which the Holy Spirit is given in the Church of God, with holy prayer, with the laying on of the hands of good people [perfect]. Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks about this baptism in the Gospel of Matthew to his disciples: “So go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age. " And in the Gospel of Mark He says:

“Go all over the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned. " And in the Gospel of John He says to Nicodemus: "Truly, truly, I say to you: unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." [...] This holy baptism, through which the Holy Spirit is given, has been preserved by the Church of God from the time of the apostles to the present day, and it is transmitted from some good people to other good people, and so it has come down to us, and so it will be as long as there is light; you should also know that the Church of God has been given the power to bind and untie, to forgive and forgive sins. [...] And in the Gospel of Mark He says: “These signs will follow them that believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will take snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. " And in the Gospel of Luke He says: "Behold, I give you the power to tread on snakes and scorpions, and on all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you." [...] "

After that, the Elder told the believer about the tenets of the Qatari religion, about what obligations he would be bound for the rest of his life, and read Pater Noster, explaining each line of this prayer, which the one preparing for the entry had to repeat after him. Then the believer solemnly renounced the Catholic faith, in which he had been since childhood, promised that from now on he would not touch either meat, or eggs, or any other food of animal origin, he would refrain from carnal pleasures, he would never lie, never will not take an oath and will never renounce the Qatari faith. Then he had to utter these words:

“I receive this holy prayer from God, from you and from the Church,” and then announce loudly and distinctly that he wants to be baptized. After that, he performed a melioramentum (kneel down three times and asked for blessing) before the Elder and asked God to forgive him everything in which he sinned in thought, deed or omission. Then the kind people present (perfect) in chorus pronounced the formula for absolution:

"In the name of the Lord, ours and the name of the Church, may your sins be forgiven." And, finally, there came the solemn moment of the ceremony, which was supposed to make the believer perfect: the Elder took the Gospel and placed it on the head of a new member of the Church, and from above he and his assistants laid each their right hand and prayed to God that on this person the Holy Spirit descended, while the congregation recited the Pater Noster and other appropriate Qatari prayers aloud. Then the Elder read the first seventeen verses of the Gospel of John, recited again, this time alone, Pater Noster, and the new perfect one received from him, and then from the other perfect ones, the kiss of peace, which he then passed on to the one who was closest to him. , and he passed the kiss to his neighbor, and so, from one to another, this kiss bypassed all those present.

The “comforted”, now made perfect, put on black clothes, signifying his new condition, donated all his property as a gift to the Qatari community, and began to lead a wandering life as a merciful preacher following the example of Jesus and his apostles. The city deacon or the Qatari bishop of the province had to choose for him among other perfect companions, who was called socius (or socia, if it was a woman), with whom he, surrounded by the veneration and worship of peasants, townspeople and nobility, would henceforth share his life, his toil and adversity.

The crusade against the Cathars, the so-called "Albigensian Crusade", was in fact a pretext invented by Philip Augustus in order to seize the lands of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, that is, the Toulouse County proper and related possessions, such as the Viscountries of Béziers and Albi , with the sole purpose: to expand the territory of the French kingdom. It doesn't hurt to say a few words about this man here. He was born in 1156 and died in 1222 in Toulouse, was married five times, his wife - Ermessinda de Pele (died in 1176), Beatrice, the sister of the Viscount Beziers (he married her until 1193), Burginda de Auzignan (the wedding took place in 1193) "Jeanne, sister of Richard the Lionheart (she brought him Agena as a dowry) and, finally, in 1211, he married Eleanor, the sister of the Aragonese king.

Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and Saint-Gilles, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Provence, succeeded his father, Raymond V, in 1194. The lucrative treaty concluded by him put an end to the war, which the latter waged with the English Plantagenets (with Henry II, then with his son, Richard the Lionheart), from whom he took Kersey. In 1198 he allied with his brother-in-law, Richard the Lionheart, and several major vassals against Philip Augustus; in the following years, he continually entered into armed conflicts with various lords of the south. When Raymond VI was not armed and did not fight, he kept a brilliant court, where troubadours flocked, and showed concern for the Cathars, who, using his patronage, settled on his lands. In 1205 or 1206, the count, frightened by the actions of Pope Innocent III, who persuaded Philip Augustus to start a crusade against these heretics (that is, on his, Raymond's, lands), promised the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau, about whom we will talk later, that he would not tolerate more Cathars in their domain; however, he never kept his promise, and in the future we will see how the mission of Pierre de Castelnau, the papal legate, will end with the terrible Albigensian crusade.

This summary allows us to outline the following two circumstances, which, in turn, will help us understand the meaning of this unworthy religious war: 1) the power of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, whose possessions were almost as vast and rich as those of his overlord, King of France, and the fact that, among other things, he was brought in by brother-in-law to Richard the Lionheart (with him, as we have already said, he united against Philip Augustus, who was the count of distant relatives), made him a natural opponent of the king; 2) the freedom of his morals and his disposition towards the Cathars, as everyone knew, made Count Raymond VI an enemy of God (and therefore Pope Innocent III), which in 1207 led to his excommunication from the Church by the decision of Pierre de Castelnau, confirmed dad next May.

As a consequence of all this, Count Raymond VI, both for the pope and for the French king, was a man to be dealt with. The crusade against the Cathars provided a pretext and justification for this crime, since there were plenty of heretics both in the county of Toulouse and throughout Occitania. Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernet, who fiercely pursued the Cathars with his only weapon - a strong quill in his hand, explains this to us with undisguised bias, but vividly and vividly, and along the way gives some precious information to which we will draw the reader's attention along the way. affairs:

“Let us first note that he [Count Raymond VI], one might say, from the cradle loved heretics and favored them, while those who lived on his lands, he honored as best he could. Until now [before 1209; the murder of the papal legate, which became the reason for the crusade, took place in 1208], it is said that wherever he goes, he brings heretics dressed in ordinary clothes with him, so that if he had to die, he could die at them in their arms: in fact, it seemed to him that he could be saved without any repentance if on his deathbed he could receive the laying on of hands from them. He always carried with him the New Testament in order, if necessary, to receive from heretics the laying on of hands with this book. [...] The Count of Toulouse, as we know for certain, once told heretics that he would like to raise his son [the future Raymond VII] in Toulouse, among the heretics, so that he would be brought up in their faith. The Count of Toulouse once told heretics that he would gladly give a hundred silver coins to convert one of his knights to the heretics, whom he often persuaded to convert to this faith, forcing him to listen to sermons. In addition, when the heretics sent him gifts and food supplies, he accepted all this with the liveliest gratitude and preserved it with the greatest care: he did not allow anyone to touch them except himself and several of his associates. And very often, as we learned with great certainty, he even worshiped heretics, kneeling, and asked for their blessings, and gave them the kiss of peace. [...] Once the count was in the church where mass was served: he was accompanied by a mime who, according to the custom of jesters of this kind, mocked people, making faces and making feigned movements. When the priest turned to the crowd with the words “Dominus vobiscum”, the vile count told his histrion to mimic and mock the priest. On another occasion, this very count also said that he would rather be like some dangerous heretic from Castres, in the diocese of Albi, who had neither arms nor legs, and lived in poverty, than to be a king or emperor. "

These last words of the Count of Toulouse may be true, but they do not at all testify to the "abomination" of Raymond VI - they rather serve as proof that this ruler, no matter how libertine he was, was able to admire, or even envy an almost mystical the purity of the faith of the perfect, doomed to ascend to the fires that he, perhaps, someday will have to light for them. Indeed, it did not take the Cathars even two centuries to finally create in Occitania, and mainly in the Toulouse county, a Church firmly rooted in all its districts and in all its cities, and this Church was not a secret , nor underground and found adherents both among the village common people and among the townspeople, and among its members, as well as those who sympathized with her, there were powerful barons and noble nobles of Languedoc.

However, the Qatari doctrine was not the only heresy of the Languedoc. Indeed, Pierre de Vaux-de-Sernet informs us of the existence of a Christian sect, which originated in the south of France around 1170 and began with the sermons of a certain Pierre Waldo, a wealthy Lyon merchant who abandoned everything he had acquired in order to call for a return to the original ethics of the gospel; his followers were called Waldensians, forming this name on behalf of the founder of the sect.

“These people were undoubtedly bad,” he writes, “but if you compare them with the Cathar heretics, they were much less corrupt. Indeed, on many issues they agreed with us, and on others they disagreed. Their error pertained mainly to four points: they had to, like the apostles, wear sandals, said that in no case should they swear or kill, and argued that any of them could, if necessary and on condition, that wears sandals, to celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist, even if this person was not a priest and was not ordained by a bishop. "

The Waldensians were persecuted by Rome, in 1487 a crusade was launched against them, but they managed to survive and find refuge in the alpine villages of Piedmont, Savoy and Luberon. When they were persecuted again in the 17th century (under Louis XIV), they joined the Calvinist Reformed Church. Let's clarify that the Waldensians had nothing to do with the Cathars: in particular, they never supported any Manichean theories.