Melitios de Lycopolis

Bishop of Lycopolis (today Assiout), Mélitios was the initiator of a Schisme intern with the Church of Egypt which seems to have begun in 304, during persecutions of the Tétrarchie and which seems to have lasted at least until the beginning of the 5th century, as to Socrate the Scholastic and undoubtedly even in certain monasteries until the 8th century testifies some. Mélitiens asserted the autonomy of the Churches of Average-Egypt and High-Egypt compared to Alexandria. They complained in particular to be persecuted by Athanase and the partisans of this one showed them in return to be ariens, in spite of their sharp denials (Athanase of Alexandria claims moreover that Mélitios would have proceeded to sacrifices with idols, which is not very probable).

There exist two versions of the origin of the disagreement which opposed Mélitios to the bishop Pierre of Alexandria:

That which appears in the historians of the time and in various official documents, in particular those of the council of Nicée: Mélitios would have proceeded to ordonnations not only in its own province, but a little everywhere in Egypt and until in the capital, either by personal ambition, or by claim separatist and distrust of the interior of the country with regard to the Greek city. It does not appear, in these documents and at the beginning at least, of reference to a doctrinal antagonism.
That only one source, fictionalized and obviously drawn from documents mélitiens gives, and which does not quote official documents, Épiphane de Salamine: Mélitios, stopped at the same time as Pierre and locked up in the same prison would have separated from this one by seeing it granting forgiveness to Christians who had failed and abjured under the threat. Once slackened, Mélitios would have created a parallel Church, only made pure clerks of all Apostasie. The schism mélitien is thus presented like an Eastern version of the contemporary schism donatist of North Africa, with which it does not appear nevertheless to have had contacts.

The thesis according to which Arius would have been the pupil of Mélitios - or at least a close relation - is very doubtful and undoubtedly comes from charges launched by the party of Athanase in order to blacken Mélétiens (or Arius?).

Sources

On Mélitios de Lycopolis: Épiphane de Salamine, Panarion ; Socrate the Scholastic, Ecclesiastical History I, 9; Théodoret, Ecclesiastical History I, 8

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