To the Question of the Confessional Status of the Paulicians in the Ottoman Empire in the XVTH – XVII th centuries

The article is focused on the special confessional status of the Paulicians in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th – 17th centuries and their relations with the other Christian denominations on the basis of Ottoman documents and Catholic missionaries’ sources. The definition “Paulician”, used in the Ottoman inventories, is elucidated by examination of the historical reminiscence of the age-old contacts and treaties between the Paulicians and the Moslem rulers between the 9th and the 14th centuries and their continuity under the conditions of the Ottoman Empire. Both the Ottoman inventories and the reports of the Catholic missionaries present the 17th-century Paulician villages as communities with relative autonomy from the other Christians within the Empire – the Orthodox and the Catholics. During this period the Paulicians had tax concessions as well as the right to elect their own priests through a traditional Paulician ritual