a name given to the Catholics of Antioch in the 4th century, on occasion of their refusal to acknowledge any other bishop beside St Eustathius, deposed by the Arians.

The denomination was given them during the episcopate of Paulinus, whom the Arians substituted to St Eustathius, about the year 330, when they began to hold their assemblies apart. About the year 350, Leontius of Phrygia, called the eunuch, who was an Arian, and was put in the see of Antioch, desired the Eustathians to perform their service in his church; which they accepting, the church of Antioch served indifferently both the Arians and Catholics.

This, we are told, gave occasion to two institutions, which have subsisted in the church ever since. The first was psalmody in two choirs; though M. Baillet thinks, that if they instituted an alternate psalmody between two choirs, it was between two Catholic choirs, and not by way of response to an Arian choir. The second was the doxology, Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. See Doxology.

This conduct, which seemed to imply a kind of communion with the Arians, gave great offence to abundance Eustathians dance of Catholics, who began to hold separate meetings; and this formed the schism of Antioch. Upon this, the rest, who continued to meet in the church, ceased to be called Eustathians, and that appellation became refrained to the dissenting party. St Flavianus, bishop of Antioch in 381, and one of his successors, Alexander, in 482, brought to pass a coalition, or reunion, between the Eustathians and the body of the church of Antioch, described with much solemnity by Theodoret, Ecc. lib. iii. c. 2.

Eustathians were also a sect of heretics in the fourth century, denominated from their founder Eustathius, a monk so foolishly fond of his own profession, that he condemned all other conditions of life. Whether this Eustathius was the same with the bishop of Sebastea and chief of the Semi-Arians, is not easy to determine.

He excluded married people from salvation; prohibited his followers from praying in their houses; and obliged them to quit all they had, as incompatible with the hopes of heaven. He drew them out of the other assemblies of Christians to hold secret ones with him, and made them wear a particular habit: he appointed them to fast on Sundays; and taught them, that the ordinary fasts of the church were needless, after they had attained to a certain degree of purity which he pretended to. He showed great horror for chapels built in honour of martyrs, and the assemblies held therein. Several women seduced by his reasons, forsook their husbands, and abundance of slaves deserted their masters houses. He was condemned at the council of Gangra in Paphlagonia, held between the years 326 and 341.