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 Albanians (v.). The designation Concorresenses (used with many orthographic variants in the sources), or that of Ecclesia de Concorrezo, derives, according to the most reliable of the various hypotheses, from the Lombard town of Concorezzo, where the sect had one of its dogmatic and hierarchical centres. 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 in 1167, the Italian Cathars led by Bishop Marco adopted absolute dualism (v. ALBANESI); subsequently, a certain Petracus brought part of the defectors back to the mitigated dualism of the Cathar Church of Bulgaria, and they constituted the sect of the c. Because of these Eastern influences, various sources unanimously report that the Church of Concorezzo received its beliefs from the Church or order of Bulgaria. In the last decade of the 12th century, Bishop Nazzaro (or Nazario) brought back from a journey to Bulgaria the docetic doctrine concerning Jesus Christ and the Madonna, dividing the c. on this issue. Among those who denied the corporeal reality of Jesus Christ, together with the Bagnolese (v.), there was also the faction known as the Sclavi or Sclavini, since they were doctrinally dependent on the ecclesia Sclavoniae. The c. were widespread in Lombardy, and around 1250 their numbers were reckoned by R. Sacconi at more than 1,500; their proselytism, however, did not succeed among the adherents of the other Cathar Churches.
Their doctrine is characterised 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 the four material elements forming chaos. The angel Lucifer, having become the author of evil through sin, seduced other angels, joined himself to a monstrous spirit which, according to some, had had no beginning and was confused within chaos, and, with the help of another angel, by God’s permission, fashioned the material world and the body of Adam, into which he confined the cooperating angel; through Eve he made him commit the sin of the generative act. From the first couple derive both human bodies and souls, by traducianism, differing in this from the Bagnolese (v.). It is the demon who acts in the Old Testament, apart from certain exceptions; the c. debate the goodness or otherwise of some ancient figures. Their teaching appears divided concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit and of the Son; the latter would nevertheless be inferior to the Father. Jesus Christ did not have a human soul, and concerning his corporeal nature they oppose the docetists by admitting the material reality of his body and of his actions upon material elements, in addition to spiritual operations; they nevertheless deny the glorification of this body, which he laid aside before the Ascension; such will also be the fate of human bodies. Some souls will be saved and others damned; no gradation, however, is admitted either of guilt and punishment for sinners or of goodness and glory for the just. Some c. teach that among the fallen spirits only those who sinned under compulsion will be saved, whereas those who transgressed of their own will will be damned. A detailed and comparative examination of the sources would establish other doctrinal aspects of the c., as well as their fluctuations in thought; for the general part V. CATARI.