Sergios 1 was a leader of the Paulicians; the son of Dryinos 1, he came from the village of Annia in the district of Tabia (in Armenia); while still a young man he met a Manichaean (i.e. Paulician) woman and through her influence became, according to Peter of Sicily (Petros 1), a precursor of Antichrist; he was still a student (ἐν ἐπιστήμῃ γραμμάτων καὶ παιδεύσεως) when he met her and was as yet unacquainted with the scriptures (which were to be read, he is supposed to have said, only by the clergy); she encouraged Sergios 1 to explore the scriptures and under her guidance he became an influential leader, strengthened by the virtuous appearance of his life - a wolf in sheep's clothing, according to Petros 1; he promoted the heresy with great zeal and assumed the name Tychikos, claiming to have been sent by the Apostle Paul to spread the Word of God; in two passages (Peter of Sicily, 134, 156) it is asserted that Sergios 1 called himself the Paraclete and that he was worshipped as the Holy Spirit.

He travelled untiringly through many cities and places, through which eight hundred years before the Apostle had gone, and won many converts from the ranks of the orthodox; he was leader of the (Paulician) heresy for thirty-four years, from the reign of the empress Eirene (Eirene 1) to that of the emperor Theophilos (Theophilos 5) (therefore from 802 to 834), during which time he laid the foundations of the situation of the heretics as it existed in Petros 1's own day. According to Petros 1, Sergios 1 was guilty of robbing and killing people, of depriving others of eternal life, of ruining marriages through the conduct of his disciples and of taking babies away from their mothers, killing some and selling others to the Arabs; he separated young men and women from their parents and sold them to the barbarians, he separated brothers and sisters and kinsfolk and friends and sent them into exile; through his disciples he corrupted monks and nuns; he turned priests and other clergy away from the paths of orthodoxy; he was responsible for many persons dying in chains in prison and he impoverished many of the rich; he is said to have taught the churches of the Laodiceans (meaning the Kynochoritae), the Ephesians (meaning the people of Mopsuestia) and the Colossians (meaning the Argaoutae).

His doctrines were the same as those of Manes. When Sergios 1 began to teach, he rebuked the then Paulician leader Baanes 1, not for his teachings but for his conduct; Sergios 1 expressed disgust, shamed him to his face and split the followers of the heresy into two factions, one following Baanes 1 (the Baniotai) and the other himself (the Sergiotai); a group of his followers, the Astatoi, resisted persecution and killed the exarchos Parakondakes 1, then fled to Melitene where the emir Monocherares 1 gave them Argaoun to live in; from there they began to raid the Roman empire (Ῥωμανία); Sergios 1 lived with his followers at Argaoun for several years, and it was near there that he was murdered, by Tzanion 1, while engaged in splitting planks with an axe; he died in the year of the world 6343, i.e. 834/835; after his death his faction began murdering their opponents (the Baniotai) until stopped by one of his former companions, Theodotos 1; his disciples were known as his companions or fellow-travellers (συνέκδημοι); they included Michael 1, Kanakaris 1 and Ioannes 1, as well as Theodotos 1, Basilios 2, Zosimos 2 and others; after his death his disciples appointed no one as his successor but all became equal; the source which Petros 1 used for his information about Sergios 1 was Sergios 1's own writings; Petros 1 also cited extracts from Sergios 1's writings in order to confute him: Peter of Sicily, 132-174, 177-183.

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