Apostolic Brethren

Apostoliker, apostles brothers or relatives called the Apostles Order, refers to the followers of various sects who demanded as opposed to the secularization of the church return to apostolic simplicity.

The Apostoliker occurring in Asia Minor in the 3rd and 4th centuries (also called Apotaktiken ) held possession and marriage are incompatible with the salvation, their movement was soon suppressed. In the 12th century a part of the Cathars called the Lower Rhine as Apostoliker.

Primarily, however, the name refers to the followers of a created in northern Italy in the 13th century anti-clerical party, which was later persecuted by the Inquisition. And was founded by Gerardo Segarelli, a dealer from Parma, who renounced his possessions and dressed from 1260 as the apostles, begging and preaching repentance through the land.

The second Council of Lyons in 1274 had the institutionalization of new mendicant orders without papal approval prohibited and Pope Honorius IV had in 1274 the movement of Apostoliker strongly condemned, which was confirmed by Nicholas IV in 1290. Segarelli was therefore jailed by the Bishop of Parma about 1280 and in 1286 banished from the diocese. 1294 Segarelli was therefore caught again, and after he had renounced his teachings, was sentenced to life imprisonment. After he was charged and convicted of a relapse into heresy, he was burned on July 18, 1300 in Parma.

As his successor as leader of the Segarellis Apostoliker to Fra Dolcino explained that began to swear the downfall of the papacy and the appearance of an end- emperor in prophetic epistle. After Dolcino and his followers had the persecution initially withdrawn by the Inquisition as an itinerant preacher in the underground, they went from 1304 to open military resistance over. They entrenched themselves on a mountain called " Tavolo Calva " and began in the surrounding dioceses Novara and Vercelli, a guerrilla war against the botene up against them the army, which they secured their living by raiding and pillaging in the area.

Eventually the bishop of Vercelli, include the Dolcinellen on their mountain, starve and capture. Dolcino was burned along with his companion and " spiritual sister " Margareta and 150 of his followers on June 1st, 1307 at the stake, which is essentially the end of the movement meant, although there are some times in Northern Italy, Spain and France in the following decades brief flare-up came.