SECTS

SECTS. Just as in the West, the Eastern Christian world has known a number of sects over the centuries. The word denotes a group, usually limited in number, that claims a peculiarly absolute grasp on truth, the latter often consisting of a very specific and narrowly focused set of affirmations and expectations. Thus the followers of Marcion in the 2nd c. and 3rd c., or one of the groups following this or that gnostic leader (see Gnosticism), might fairly be labeled sects. In the Byzantine (q.v.) era, one may point to unknown ascetics and their followers for whom the term “Messalianism” was coined (4th-6th c.), or the dualist Paulicians and Bogomils of medieval Asia Minor and the Balkans (qq.v.), respectively. More recently, the Russian schism of the 17th c. and the resulting Old Believer (qq.v.) movement saw the latter giving birth to a multitude of sects whose beliefs varied from simple liturgical conservatism to apocalyptic fervor concluding in mass suicides. In modern Greece, the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in the 1920s led to “Old Calendarist” groups (or “True Orthodox,” by their own reckoning) who have since fractured into at least half a dozen competing groups. The Orthodox oikoumene (q.v.) has also seen the importation from the West of dozens of groups, including, of course, “mainline” denominations, but also taking in others who in America and in the East stand very much on the margins.