Zeli 1 was the founder of a shortlived heresy immediately after the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843; he held the office of protoasekretis; he and his followers were quickly cured of their errors and celebrated their freedom from error in an imperial procession: Theoph. Cont. IV 12 (pp. 161-162) (καὶ ἑτέρα δέ τις αἵρεσις οὕτω τῶν Ζηλίκων λεγομένη ἀναφανεῖσα, σὺν τῷ ἑαυτῆς ἀρχηγῷ Ζῆλι ὀνομαζομένῳ, φέροντι δὲ τὴν τῶν ἀσηκρήτων ἐν πρώτοις τιμήν), Ps.-Symeon 654.

Zeli 1 was the founder of a heresy under Methodios 1; he was a high ranking imperial secretary (τῷ ἀρχηγῷ αὐτῶν Ζήλικι, ὄντι τῶν βασιλικῶν ἐν πρώτοις ὑπογραφέων), who proclaimed his beliefs in the Great Church on a festive day which was celebrated with an imperial procession, and who arrayed himself and his followers in shining raiment: Genesius IV 6, cf. Scyl., p. 89. There is a discussion of this affair in an article, by J. Gouillard, "Deux figures mal connues du second iconoclasme", in La vie religieuse à Byzance (Variorum, 1981) VI).

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