Is Europe Christian? This simple question remains the genesis of troubled, controversial and heated discussions about the real identity of the European continent and the role that Christianity plays in it. And this is not just a discussion that concerns religious debates, conservatism or identitarianism: even the European Union in recent years still struggles to establish how far countries like Turkey (which still have a modest range of European territory) shares so-called European values; after all, for many, Islam is an invading religion, alien and irreconcilable with what Europe represents in its most conservative spectrum (represented by Christianity) or in its most liberal aspect (Enlightenment, modern freedoms, democracy, etc.).

In this scenario, countries like Bosnia represent the archetype of an unwanted existence. With a Muslim majority and with a strong Islamic identity consolidated in half a millennium of history, the adoption and persistence in the “Mohammedan religion” has been a deadly sin for many Christian groups in the Balkans in recent centuries. The kind of nuisance that would lead countries like Orthodox Serbia and Catholic Croatia, both with a history of practicing genocide against each other, to carry out extermination campaigns against the Bosnian Muslim community.

But after all, when and how did Bosnia become Islamic? In a short answer: from the 14th century onwards, as a result of the Islamic Conquest. The long answer, however, compels us to go back to the previous centuries of the Middle Ages, describing how an ancient Christian heresy developed the way we know Bosnia today.

The Origins and Development of Bogomilism

Before settling in the Balkans, the heresy that came to be known as “Bogomilism” has its origins in the preaching of the armenian Constantine (or Silvanus) of Mananalis, in the middle of the seventh century. Spreading its doctrines throughout the Byzantine Empire and Armenia, the Constantine movement sought to return to the purity of the Church in the times of the Apostle Paul, giving rise to the first sobriquet with which the group was identified: Paulicianism.

In addition to iconoclasm and the condemnation of the veneration of images, another relevant aspect of this new doctrine, quite similar to that defended by Marcionists and Gnostics, was the rejection of the Old Testament and the belief in two Gods: a good one, creator of the soul and that which concerned the immaterial world, and an evil one, creator of the physical world and the human body. Because of this dualism, its faithful sought to follow a strict moral behaviour, distinguishing them from other Christians of their time.

Contradicting their rejection of the material world, the Paulicians were known as excellent warriors, a quality that would be decisive in institutional reactions to them, considering that by the 7th century adherence to this heresy was punished with death at the stake.

The Paulicians’ usefulness as soldiers explains why, unlike other heresies in Christian history, they were not as summarily exterminated as many other groups alienated from political power.

One of the most typical policies adopted by Byzantine emperors was to grant mass migrations of Paulicians in places where they were numerous and powerful, such as Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, relocating them to the border with the Bulgarian Empire, where they could protect it. From then on, in Armenia and Byzantine Anatolia, Paulicians were progressively converted or executed until they ceased to have a significant existence in the 13th century. Still, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, a chronicler of the Fourth Crusade, mentions the persistent presence of Paulicians in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (1202-1204).

The main problem with this migratory policy was the establishment of Paulician heresy in the heart of the Balkans, where it enjoyed relative popularity among the poor and peasants recently converted to Orthodox Christianity, who already showed great dissatisfaction with the corruption of the Orthodox Church. There was also another reason why Paulician teachings were popular with the poor: their social theology, which seemed more like a proto-Marxism.

They teach their followers not to obey their masters; they scorn the rich, they hate the Tsars, they ridicule their superiors, they reproach the boyars, they believe that God looks in horror on those who labour for the Tsar, and advise every serf not to work for his master. (Cosmas the Priest, Treatise Against the Bogomils)

From Bulgaria, the Paulicians reached out to Russia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Italy, the Netherlands and France itself, where they became known as the Cathars. In all these places, sooner or later, Paulicians were the target of persecution by orthodox Christians. For this reason, thousands of Paulicians chose to take refuge in Bosnia and Dalmatia, where they were able to settle in peace.

But this evidently brought discontent from another religious institution: the Roman Catholic Church. At that time, the entire region of Bosnia and vicinity was under the theoretical authority of the Crowns Union of the Kingdom of Hungary, whose monarchs took seriously their commitment to subject the orthodox schismatics to the papal religion.

In 1203, through a joint effort by the Catholic clergy and the Hungarian authorities, the Banate of Bosnia legally apostatized from its orthodox religion and adhered to Roman Catholicism, following the Latin Rite and recognizing the Pope’s Spiritual Supremacy. But this transition did not make the Bosnian State Church a strict follower of the papal agenda.

The Bosnian church’s leniency with a group seen as highly subversive as the Paulicians (or Bogomils, as they were also known at the time) led to various accusations that the Bosnian church was sympathetic with the same heresy that the Church fought with iron and fire in southern France, through the Albigensian Crusades (1209-1229). Papal demands for a crusade against Bosnia for merely tolerating the Bogomil heresy had already been issued by Pope Honorius III in 1221, being issued again in 1225 due to the failure of Catholic sovereigns to offer any answer.

The papal preaching of 1225, although answered by Hungary, also failed to organize anything, and it was only during the reign of Gregory IX that changes were to be seen. Everything seems to indicate that, at this time, the Bishop of Bosnia seems to have been a Bogomil himself; in addition, Matej Ninoslav, the country ruler (ban) himself, came from a family of aristocrats loyal to the Bogomil heresy, raising great dissatisfaction and distrust in Rome.

Gregory IX prepared ground for the crusade in two stages. The first was to remove the former bishop of Bosnia and replace him with a German zealot, a Dominican prelate who was extremely loyal to the Roman agenda and the first bishop of the country who was not himself a Bosnian. The second step was to ensure Matej Ninoslav’s Catholicism through an examination of faith and the requirement that he should yield his own son as a papal prisoner, ensuring that the Bosnian State would not intervene in the extermination campaign that would be carried out by the crusader army, composed primarily of Hungarian military personnel.

Not surprisingly, the new bishop was harassed by the newly Catholic population of Bosnia, who also did not want to host a destructive campaign for the extermination of heresy. In fact, the support given by the Church of Bosnia to the Bogomil community led an entire and immense wing of historians to believe that the Bosnian State Church itself was Bogomil. However, due to the fact that we have very few sources regarding the organization and details of it – thanks to the widespread documentary destruction promoted by the crusade and by the Catholic clergy loyal to Rome, there is no reference to indicate that the Bosnian Banate Church was itself Bogomil. Taking into account the arrangement proposed by another wing of historians, the Bosnian Church would basically be a Roman Catholicism that differed, mainly, by the non-persecution of heretical and schismatic groups. In the days of the Autos de Fé of the Dominican Order and its future Inquisition, such religious tolerance was clear evidence of apostate and reprehensible, if not heretical, conduct.

The Crusade in Bosnia, as one might expect, was responsible for an immense devastation in the country, both in natural resources and structures and in the human losses reaped by the expedition. In April 1238, after 5 years of campaigning, one of the leaders of the crusade had informed the Pope that Bosnia had been “cleansed” from heresy. Despite this, campaigns against heretical communities continued to run until the end of the year. By this time, the german dominican himself had been deposed for “inability” to perform his episcopal function, being replaced by Ponsa, a hungarian dominican responsible for a period of religious terror in Bosnia, with countless of Bogomils being burned at the stake.

However, the Crusade in Bosnia ended up having a different end than its equivalent in the South of France, which was definitively successful in its extermination campaign against heretics and devastating the region to an oblivious state. Although the Crusaders did in fact devastate Bosnia, the country’s resistance was able to survive by hiding in its native forests. Unable to settle in the country, thanks to their own devastation, added to the risks caused by the Bosnian resistance skirmishes and the eventual Mongol invasion in Hungary, the crusader army had no choice but to withdraw from the country, leaving only a few troops behind. Thus, Matej Ninoslav reorganized his people and managed to recover most of Banate from the hands of the invaders. Ponsa, the Hungarian bishop known for executions at the stake, had to flee the country fearing reprisals, exercising the title of bishop of Bosnia when he was not even living in his own country.

The bogomil heresy remained strong, which does not seem to have shaken the papal plan for its extermination at all. The Roman pontiff demanded new crusades in Bosnia in 1246-7, in 1337-8 and in 1367; however, due to extremely efficient diplomatic arrangements, the Bosnian State was able to suspend and frustrate organizations of new crusades: especially since, on all these occasions, Bosnia’s rulers were also all Roman Catholics.

A legacy of the Crusade, however, was definitive: the consolidation of an anti-Hungarian feeling among the Bosnian people, which would not only be decisive in the schism of the Bosnian state church itself – until then nominally Roman Catholic and submissive to the Pope – after a papal intervention in 1252 that placed it under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian clergy, as well as in the political factors that contributed to the definitive conquest of Bosnia by the Ottomans in 1463.

In 1291, the papal bull Prae Cunctis instituted the Franciscan inquisition in Bosnia, the only place where dualistic heresy still survived. The killing blow came in 1459, in the last decades of the Bosnian state, when Hungary accused Bosnia of betraying Christendom, and the only hope of receiving aid against the Ottomans came from coalitions formed by the Papacy. Pope Pius II’s message was very clear: Bosnia would not receive help from the Church or from Catholics as long as the Bosnian Church was tolerated in its domains; and here, considering that the foreign belief was that the Bosnian Church itself was Bogomil, we can easily infer that the papal demand was against all sorts of non-Catholic religion on Bosnian soil.

For the first time since its formation as a country, Bosnia has persecuted individuals for their religious beliefs. The Bosnian church clergy was given the option to convert or leave the country; about 12,000 people were forcibly converted and at least 40 clerics fled the country. In 1461, three men accused of heresy were sent to the Inquisition in Rome, to be “examined” by none other than Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, the uncle of the infamous regent of the Spanish Inquisition, Tomás de Torquemada. In compensation for its loyalty to Rome, the Bosnian monarchy retained all land expropriated from the dissident churches.

Ultimately, the persecution for Catholic conformism did very little for the imminent fate of the Ottoman conquest. And despite the persecutions and predatory proselytism of Franciscan missionaries and orthodox monks, the Inquisition’s own records confirm the existence of Bogomils even in the late 15th century, when the Ottomans already ruled the country. However, the information contained in the correspondence of Pope Pius II and Stephen Tomasevic, the last Bosnian king, is curious: according to him, there was no desire on the part of the population to resist an Ottoman invasion. Political instability, abusive taxes and the legacy of religious persecutions against the people and the clergy had considerably alienated the Bosnian state’s own ability to raise a motivated army in good numbers. Deluded by Catholic help that would never come and after several political mistakes, the Bosnian Kingdom of Tomasevic fell in a matter of weeks, with the king himself being beheaded in the presence of Sultan Mehmed II.

Even if Bosnia had effectively repelled the Ottomans, it would be in this arrangement for Hungarians to take control over the country: in this case, religious persecution and high taxes would be even more violent than they were under self-government. In none of the possible results of that war would Bosnia remain a sovereign nation.

To crown the rotten finger of religious politics, Pope Pius II himself, perhaps to justify his failure to assist the Bosnian kingdom, even accused the late Bosnian church – probably surviving in secret meetings – of having betrayed the country; an accusation that is nothing more than baseless defamation, as confirmed by historians (FINE, 2007, p. 339.).

Thus, external pressure for the extermination of the Bogomils – and later the Bosnian schismatic church – and all its short, medium and long term consequences favored a high receptivity of the Bosnian population to Muslim conquerors.

Despite the religious freedom so desperately sought by the Bosnian people, Islam has, as in Albania, enjoyed immense popularity. Like Albania, factors that explain the conversions in large numbers would be the poverty of these respective countries, the bellicosity of its people (very important in the Albanian tribes) and the prospects for promotion within Ottoman structures; there are also those who say that in Bosnia, Christianity itself was never a religion with firm roots in the life of the people, which certainly became worse by constant outside interventions with the forced conversion of the people to a foreign religion, wether by ink or by blood.

A century after the Ottoman conquest, Bosnia had become a country with a Muslim majority, establishing itself as an undesirable evidence for those who are so active in the propaganda of a Christian Europe and a Europe for Christians, where Islam is seen as nothing more than an alien religion.

Bibliography

MALCOLM, Noel. Bosnia, a Short History. New York University Press, 1994.

FINE, John van Antwerp Jr. The Bosnian Church: Its place in State and Society from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. 2007.

FINE, John van Antwerp Jr. The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfh to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan Press, 1994.

BABINGER, Franz. Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time. Princeton University Press, p. 220-222.

VELIKONJA, MITJA. Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Texas A&M University Press, 2003.

KAYAHAN, Ayse Betül. The bogomils of Bosnia: Forgotten gnostics. Daily Sabah, Agosto de 2016. Available at: <https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2016/08/24/the-bogomils-of-bosnia-forgotten-gnostics?fbclid=IwAR2XEMfc7yCG_3Cri7-XYwUNr3loP-QucfX0NJPgnpkutGVacM0vcKKMYLk>. Last access in January 6th, 2021.

MUHARREM, Qafleshi. Journey of Goranis’ from Bogomils’ to Islam. Pristina University, Department of History, 2018.