Basil the Physician (died c. 1111[1] or c. 1118[2]) was a Bogomil leader in the early 12th century who was condemned as a heretic by Eastern Orthodox patriarch Nicholas III of Constantinople and burned at the stake by Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus.
The Bogomils, noted for their Manichaean tendencies, iconoclastic principles, and detestation of the Orthodox hierarchy, had been rapidly gaining adherents throughout the empire, and began to cause alarm among the Byzantine clergy.
[10] Finlay used the following passage from Anna Komnena’s The Alexiad to support his argument: Later, the godless ones were transferred to another very strong prison into which they were cast and after pining away for a long time died in their impiety.
[11]His interpretation of the statement “the last and crowning act of the Emperor's long labours and successes” was that the execution of Basil occurred at the conclusion of Alexius' reign.
[12] This opinion has been supported in recent scholarship by Warren Treadgold who, while unwilling to give an exact date, has placed Basil's execution in the final years of Alexius' life, either 1117 or 1118.