The Bosnian Church (crkva bosanska, ecclesia bosnensis) is historically thought to be an indigenous branch of the Bogomils which existed in Bosnia during in the Middle Ages. Adherents of the church called themselves simply Krstjani ("Christians"). The church no longer exists, having disappeared completely under the period of Ottoman rule in connection to islamic converts. The church's organization and beliefs are poorly understood, because few if any records were left by church members, and the church is mostly known from the writings of outside sources, primarily Roman Catholic ones.

History

Bosnia was on the boundary between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The Croats to the West and Hungarians to the

During the later Middle Ages most of Bosnia was nominally Roman Catholic as well, but no accurate figures exist as to the numbers of adherents of the two churches. The Bosnian Church coexisted uneasily with Roman Catholicism for much of the later Middle Ages. Part of the resistance of the Bosnian Church was political; during the 14th century, the Roman Church placed Bosnia under a Hungarian bishop, and the schism may have been motivated by a desire for independence from Hungarian domination. Several Bosnian rulers were Krstjani, but some of them embraced Roman Catholicism for political reasons.

Outsiders accused the Bosnian Church of links to the Patarene heresy, and to the Bogomils, a Manichean

Historically it was thought that the Krstjani, who were persecuted by both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, accounted for many of Bosnia's converts to Islam. Some historians now believe that the Bosnian Church had largely disappeared before the Turkish conquest in 1463.

Characteristics

The Church had its own bishop and it used the Slavic language in liturgy, but in matters of theology there is no evidence that it differed from the Catholic Church.

The bishop was called djed (lit. "grandfather"), and had a council of twelve men called strojnici. the monasteries were called hiža (lit. "house"), and the heads of monasteries were often called gost (lit. "guest") and served as strojnici.

The Church was mainly composed of monks in scattered monastic houses. It had no territorial organization and it did not deal with any secular matters other than attending people's burials. It did not involve itself in state issues very much. Notable exceptions were when king Ostoja had a djed as an advisor at the royal court between 1403 and 1405, and an occasional occurrence of a krstjan elder being a mediator or diplomat.

The monumental tombstones called stećci (plural) / stećak (singular) that appeared in medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina were often identified with the Bosnian Church, but evidence points to the fact that they were erected by members of all three churches alike.

Crkva bosanska