MELETIUS, the founder of the sect of the Meletians, was Bishop of Iycopolis in Thebais in the beginning of the fourth century. During the bitter persecutions that assailed the Christians in the reigns of Diocletian and Maximian, he and his superior, Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria, were fellow-prisoners for the faith. Torture and hardship meanwhile were wringing from many an abjuration of their religion. Some of these backsliders, however, could not enjoy in peace the freedom they had so ignominiously bought, and, repairing to the two imprisoned bishops, they desired to be reconciled to the church. Peter at once declared that their request ought to be granted after they had undergone a suitable penance; but Meletius, occupying as a metropolitan a rank second only to the archbishop, ventured to oppose this decision, and refused to have any intercourse with traitors to the faith until the close of the persecution. The question was then submitted to the vote of the imprisoned Christians, and was settled by a majority agreeing with the opinion of Meletius. The schism, thus begun in a dungeon, was carried by the prisoners to the mines of Phœnon in Arabia Petraea, and rose into prominence when Meletius was finally liberated. The headstrong bishop then set himself to overturn the authority of Peter in his archbishopric of Alexandria. He travelled through the patriarchate, ordaining and excommunicating in the most arbitrary manner, attracting to himself many followers, and utterly disregarding all the protestations of the Egyptian bishops, and the sentence of deposition that Peter launched against him. This proselytizing tour was afterwards extended into Palestine. At length, in 325, the Council of Nice arrested Meletius in his reckless career, and fixed him down at Iycopolis as a mere titular bishop,
without any active jurisdiction. He did not long survive this sentence.
The Meletians, or, as they called themselves, "The Church of the Martyrs," were chiefly characterized by opposition to the Patriarch of Alexandria. So prominent was this feature that they afterwards sacrificed their orthodoxy, and entered into alliance with the Arians against Athanasius. They continued a distinct sect, however, till the fifth century.