Кой и защо изгори Василий Врач?
Who and Why Burned Basil the Physician?

Summary/Abstract: This paper suggests a new approach to one of the most scandalous events which occurred in the Byzantine Empire during the Komnenoi era, namely, the public burning of the Bogomil leader, Basil the Physician (Vasiliy Vrach). The study was prompted by three major facts: Firstly, the striking discrepancy between the act of executing at the pyre a man accused of heresy and the Byzantine church and legal tradition. Secondly, the drastic inconsistencies and considerable uncertainty in the sources with regard to almost all events related to the arrest, conviction and execution of Basil. The said uncertainty includes the date of Basil’s execution situated in a period of 20 years (between 1098 and 1118). Thirdly, attention has been drawn to the complete lack of logic in the actions of Basil the Physician, who had at least 40 years of experience as the perfect Bogomil leader. The Bogomiles used to be extremely cautious, the admission to the sect happened in stages, the true teachings being revealed only to the perfect ones. This raises the question of why Basil the Physician exposes his teachings in the court of Alexios Komnenos in such a detail that they remain, being recorded by Euthymius Zigabenus, a unique and truest source of the Bogomil faith. A unique source concerning the Bogomilism is also the story of Anna Komnena. It is a number of facts found in the writings of Euthymius Zigabenus and Anna Komnena that suggest that Basil had deliberately and methodically planned for his doctrine to be exposed correctly in front of the most respected people in the Byzantine Church and State. The same-self premeditated behavior led him to the stake. That seems to have been a case of typical provoked martyrdom – a behavior that always sought a supreme demonstration of the truth of the professed faith and maximum moral discredit of the opponents. In the case of Basil the Physician, his opponents happened to be not only, and not as much, the official secular and ecclesiastical authorities, but certain Bogomil circles which were leading the sect to ideology and ways foreign to their traditions.

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