The Gaianites were a Julianist faction within the Egyptian miaphysite church between the sixth and ninth centuries.
[1] The reign of Justin II (568–578), however, was a period of declining influence for the Gaianites, who until then had been the dominant faction within the Egyptian miaphysite movement, a position they eventually ceded to the Severans.
The anti-miaphysite patriarch Eulogius I of Alexandria, elected in 581, wrote a treatise Contra Theodosianos et Gaianitas ("Against the Theodosians and Gaianites").
Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem (634–638) distinguishes between them and the Julianists in his Narratio miraculorum sancti Cyri et Iohanni ("Narration of the Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John").
Late in the seventh century, Anastasius of Sinai still regarded the Gaianites as an important sect in his Viae dux ("Guide to the Path").