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The Melitians, sometimes called the Church of the Martyrs, were an early Christian sect in Roman Egypt. They were founded about 306 by Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis and survived as a small group into the eighth century. The point on which they broke with the larger Great Church was the same as that of the contemporary Donatists in the province of Africa: the ease with which lapsed Christians were received back into Koinonia. The resultant division in the church of Egypt is known as the Melitian schism.
When the persecutions flared up again, Peter was killed (311), and Melitius was condemned to the mines. He was released by the Edict of Serdica (311), but the persecutions came to a permanent end only with the Edict of Milan in 313. When Melitius returned to Egypt, he founded what he called the Church of the Martyrs with clergy of his own ordination. The name "Melitians" was at first used only by the sect's opponents, who sought thereby to contrast them (as heretics) with true Christians. It was also used by the imperial chancery. The name eventually lost its negative connotations and was adopted by the sect.
The period of concord lasted three years. Melitius died in 327 and had appointed John Archaph as his successor. In 328, Athanasius was elected in absentia to succeed Alexander I as patriarch.: "Athanasius was indeed elected, but not by an immediate and unanimous acclamation and not without suspicion of sharp practice." Encouraged by Eusebius of Nicomedia, the Melitians went into schism and elected a rival patriarch named Theonas with the support of the Arians. Richard Hanson argues that the Arians, the followers of Eusebius, made a pact with the Melitians only after the Melitians had unsuccessfully appealed to the emperor for protection from Athanasius.: "Eusebius of Nicomedia ... promised that he would obtain for the an audience with the Emperor if they would receive and champion Arius, and, on their agreeing, the fusion of the causes of Arius and of Melitius took place." A certain Pistos, a friend of Arius, was even ordained a bishop in the Melitian church. It is unclear if or to what extent the Melitians' Christology had been influenced by or approximated to Arianism in that period. In several letters, the Melitians accused Athanasius of beating their bishops, even of murdering one, and of desecrating Melitian liturgical vessels.
In 335, as a result of those accusations, Athanasius was condemned at the First Synod of Tyre, excommunicated, deposed and forced into exile. Athanasius responded in his famous anti-Arian tracts Apologia contra Arianos and Historia Arianorum by accusing the Melitians of lying and conspiring with Arians to unseat him. Constantine I reacted to the Council of Tyre by exiling the Melitian clergy, including John Arkaph.
Numerous papyrology have been discovered bearing evidence of a Melitian monasticism flourishing in the Egyptian desert in the 4th century. It is clear that Melitian monks lived in communities, but it is not certain if they were tightly-structured arrangements like the coenobia of the Pachomians or loose quasi-eremitic groupings like the monasteries of Nitria and Scetis. Timothy of Constantinople, in his On the Reception of Heretics written towards 600, says of the Melitians that "they engaged in no theological error, but must pronounce their schism anathema" to rejoin the church. According to the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria by John the Deacon, some Melitians were reconciled to the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria by the efforts of Bishop Moses of Letopolis late in the reign of Patriarch Michael I (died 767).
According to Theodoret (d. c. 460), the Melitians developed unique forms of worship that included hand clapping and music. It has been argued that the movement was dominated by Copts (native Egyptian-speakers). Coptic papyri, the writings of the Pachomians and mentions in the writings of Shenoute lend some weight to this view.
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