Donatism

Donatism (Latin: Donatismus, Greek: Δονατισμός Donatismós) was a religious movement that separated from the proto-catholics in the 4th century.

Donatism made the assumption that Christian clergy are required to be faultless for their ministrations to be effective and for the prayers and sacraments they conduct to be valid. This belief was once held strongly among Berber Christians. Donatism had its roots in the social pressures among the long-established Christian community of the Roman Africa province (present-day Berber countries Algeria and Tunisia), during the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian. The Donatists (named after the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus) were a Christian sect within the Roman province of Africa that flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries, an offshoot church which maintained the need of strong moral principles and did not follow some of the doctrines of other churches of the rest of Early Christianity in Late Antiquity.

Donatism was an indirect outcome of Diocletian's persecutions. The governor of the Africa province had been lenient towards the large Christian minority under his rule during the persecutions. He was satisfied when Christians handed over their Scriptures as a token repudiation of their faith. Some Christians acceded to this convenient action. When the persecutions came to an end, however, they were branded traditores, "those who handed (the holy things) over" by their critics, mostly from the poorer classes.

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