The Parabalani (Late Latin parabalānī, "persons who risk their lives as nurses", from Ancient Greek: παραβαλανεῖς) or Parabolani (from παραβολᾶνοι or παράβολοι)[1] were the members of a brotherhood, who in early Christianity voluntarily undertook the care of the sick and the burial of the dead, knowing that they themselves could die.
Generally drawn from the lower strata of society, they also functioned as attendants to local bishops and were sometimes used by them as bodyguards and in violent clashes with their opponents.
They received their name from the fact that they were hospital attendants, although the alternative name parabolani also became current, because they risked their lives (παραβάλλεσθαι τὴν ζωήν) in exposing themselves to contagious diseases.
Though they took vows before the bishop and officially remained under his control, the Codex Theodosianus placed them instead under the command of the praefectus augustalis, the imperial governor of Roman Egypt.
[4] In the 2009 film Agora, focusing on the life of Hypatia, the parabolani start out as Christian volunteers who distribute bread to the poor, but gradually turn into fanatical death squads who murder pagans, Jews, and fellow Christians who oppose fundamentalist Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria.