MELEZIO (MELIZIO) of LICOPOLI. — Bishop of Licopoli in the Thebaid (Egypt), d. ca. 325–26, founder of the schism known after him as Meletian, which probably began in 306 and did not entirely die out until around the beginning of the sixth century.
From sources that are not always consistent, it appears that between 305 and Easter 306, while Diocletian’s persecution was raging, and several bishops and faithful were in prison and Pietro, bishop of Alexandria, was in hiding, M., bishop of Licopoli, arrogated to himself in practice, almost everywhere, including Alexandria itself, the right to act as superior of the Egyptian Church, visiting, ordaining clerics, and excommunicating. Of rigorist sentiments, he seems to have regarded the flight of Pietro and his vicars as treason and perhaps for this reason regarded Pietro himself as deposed from his office. He succeeded in persuading some Alexandrian priests as well, whereupon certain bishops in prison protested against M.’s conduct (fragment of their letter, ed. Kettler, op. cit., V. BIBLICA., p. 159 ff.), and Pietro, in a letter, warned his faithful (ibid.) against him.
After Easter 306, when the persecution had abated, many of the faithful who had compromised themselves to some degree (lapsi) wished to return to the Church, and Pietro, in a pastoral letter (PG 18, 467–508), regulated their situation, establishing that only in the most excusable cases were the lapsi to be immediately admitted to canonical penance, whereas for the others the case would be examined only after a year of probation; at the same time, he defended the legitimacy, in certain circumstances, of flight during a persecution. M., opposed to this leniency, incited a considerable number of those who had publicly confessed the faith against Pietro (Epiphanius, Haer., 68, 1–3: PG 42, 184–89), whereupon Pietro had M. deposed by a synod of bishops (Athanasius, Apol. c. Ar., 59: ibid., 25, 356; Socrates, Hist. eccl., I, 6: ibid., 67, 52 ff.). M., now openly schismatic (Athanasius, ibid. and Ep. ad episc. Aegypti et Lyb., 22: ibid., 25, 589), set about organizing the so-called “church of the martyrs,” that is, of the confessors (Epiphanius, Haer., 68, 3: ibid., 42, 189). In 308–309, when the persecution broke out again, M. was deported ad metalla in Palestine. He returned in 311 with the halo of a confessor, which increased the sect’s prestige. Bishop Pietro, in order to counter its progress, declared the baptism of the Meletians invalid, thereby provoking the opposition of some members of his clergy, among whom the deacon Arius, the future heresiarch, distinguished himself; while still a layman, he had already adhered to M. Pietro excommunicated him (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., I, 15: PG 67, 905). Toward the end of 311 Pietro himself died a martyr, and was succeeded by Achillas and then (313) by Alessandro. But M. continued his schism, and the schismatic hierarchy was organized throughout Egypt (Athanasius, Apol. c. Ar., 71: ibid., 25, 373), while Hosius of Cordova, when he came to Alexandria in 324 concerning the affair of Arius, also had to deal with the Meletians (Eusebius, Vita Const., II, 62–63: ibid., 20, 1036; III, 4: ibid., 1057). The Council of Nicaea did the same in 325 (v. Socrates, Hist. eccl., I, 9: PG 67, 77–81): M. was recognized as bishop of Licopoli, but without the right to perform ordinations; the clerics ordained by him were to be reordained and could thus exercise among Catholics the functions of their rank, taking their place, in the corresponding order, after the members of the regular hierarchy, though with the hope of also being promoted in the event of a regular election. In its canon 6, the Council explicitly confirmed the traditional and extensive metropolitan rights of the bishop of Alexandria over all Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis (Cyrenaica; Mansi, II, 669 ff.).
The Meletians appealed to Constantine (Eusebius, Vita Const., III, 23: PG 20, 1084), requesting the aid of Eusebius of Nicomedia (Epiphanius, Haer. 68, 5 ff.: PG 42, 192–93); but Eusebius’s exile compelled the Meletians, more or less sincerely, to reconcile themselves with Alessandro (Athanasius, Apol. c. Ar., 71: PG 25, 376). Nevertheless, before his death (ca. 325–26), M. succeeded in providing himself with a successor, Giovanni Arkaph, whom he made bishop of Memphis (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., II, 21: PG 67, 985), and the sect, now in close alliance with the Arians, waged a ruthless struggle against the new bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius (328), a struggle elucidated by the recent papyri (v. BIBLICA) and by Athanasius himself in his Apologia contra Arianos; consequently, the Meletians were unreservedly counted among the Arians (Sozomen, ibid.), whose fortunes they also shared. Traces of them are found in the fifth century (Theodoret, Hist. eccl., I, 8: PG 82, 932) and at the beginning of the sixth, especially among the monks. In the Meletian question, the similarities with the cases of the Donatists and Novatians are evident.