Crossword-Solution: BOGOMIL 7 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 12

After the death of Simeon the Bulgarian power declined owing to internal dissensions; the land was distracted by the Bogomil heresy (see BOGOMILS), and a separate or western empire, including Albania and Macedonia, was founded at Ochrida by Shishman, a boyar from Trnovo.

The chief literature of all the heretical sects throughout the ages has been that of apocryphal Biblical narratives, and the popes Jeremiah or Bogumil are directly mentioned as authors of such forbidden books "which no orthodox dare read." Though these writings are mostly the same in origin as are known from the older lists of apocryphal books, they underwent in this case a certain modification at the hands of their Bogomil editors, so as to be used for the propagation of their own specific doctrines.

His position was endangered by the growing power of his father-in-law, Stephen Vukcic, an ardent Bogomil, who had united Tribunia and Hlum into a single principality.

Thus the desire for vengeance and the prospect of a brilliant military career impelled the Bogomil magnates to adopt the creed of Islam, which, in its austerity, presented some points of resemblance to their own doctrines.

This opposition was intensified by the schism between Eastern and Western Christianity (1054), the Slavs as a rule preferring the Orthodox or sometimes the Bogomil creed, while the Italians were firmly attached to the Papacy.