CONCOREZZESI. - They formed one of the principal currents into which the Cathars (v.) in Italy were divided: they taught a mitigated or monarchian dualism, in opposition to the absolute dualism represented by the Albanenses (v.). The designation Concorresenses (used with many graphic variants in the sources) or that of Ecclesia de Concorrezo derive, according to the most reliable among the various hypotheses, from the Lombard town of Concorezzo, where the sect had one of its dogmatic and hierarchical centers. The C. are also called gara(c)t(h)unes, from the name of one of their bishops, Gara(c)t(h)us, who lived at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. At the Cathar Council of Saint-Félix de Caraman, 1167, the Italian Cathars led by Bishop Mark passed over to absolute dualism (v. ALBANESI); subsequently a certain Petracus led part of the renegades back to the mitigated dualism of the Cathar Church of Bulgaria, and these formed the sect of the C. Because of these Eastern influences it is unanimously reported by various sources that the Church of Concorezzo received its belief from the Church or order of Bulgaria. In the last decade of the 12th century the bishop Nazarius (or Nazario) brought back from a journey to Bulgaria the docetic doctrine concerning Jesus Christ and the Madonna, dividing the C. on this subject. Among those who denied the corporeal reality of Jesus Christ, together with the Bagnolenses (v.), there also appears the faction of the so-called Sclavi or Sclavini, as being doctrinally dependent on the ecclesia Sclavoniae. The C. were widespread in Lombardy and around 1250 their numbers are reckoned by R. Sacconi at more than 1500; their proselytism, however, met with no success among the adherents of the other Cathar Churches.
Their doctrine is characterized by the admission of a single eternal principle, the good God, superior to the principle of evil, Lucifer, and creator ex nihilo of the angels and of the four material elements forming the chaos. The angel Lucifer, who through sin became the author of evil, seduced other angels, united with a monstrous spirit, which according to some would have had no beginning, confused in the chaos, and with the help of another angel, by God's permission, composed the material world and the body of Adam, in which he enclosed the cooperating angel; through Eve he made him commit the sin of the generative act. From the first couple come both human bodies and souls by traducianism, differing in this from the Bagnolenses (v.). It is the devil who operates in the Old Testament, with certain exceptions; the C. dispute whether certain ancient figures were good or not. Their teaching appears discordant concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit and of the Son; the latter would nevertheless be inferior to the Father. Jesus Christ had no human soul, and concerning his corporeal nature they oppose the docetes by admitting the material reality of his body and of his actions upon material elements, besides the spiritual operations; however, they deny the glorification of this body, which he laid aside before the ascension; such will also be the fate of men's bodies. Of the souls, some will be saved and some damned; however, no gradation is admitted, either of guilt and punishment for sinners, or of goodness and glory for the just. Some C. teach that of the fallen spirits only those who sinned under compulsion will be saved, while those who transgressed of their own will shall be damned. A detailed and comparative examination of the sources would determine other doctrinal aspects of the C., as well as their fluctuations of thought; for the general part v. CATARI.
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