According to this recount of Satanism, the belief system is a modern phenomenon. The only confirmed "Satanic Church" wasn't formed until the 1960s.
I suppose we can concede that part of this question on the existence of an ancient satanic church is not falsifiable because there was a clear incentive to keep it a secret to avoid persecution. Still, I think we can draw a finer line. In the case of the persecution that happened to the sect at Montsegur, there were accusations of them being satanists, but their belief system was not overtly thus. For instance, they venerated Christ and followed the scripture of the Book of Enoch -- making them more likely to be Gnostics as opposed to satanists.
But when searching for an actual ancient satanic cult, there seemed to be little academic research on the matter.
Question
What evidence do we have on the earliest satanic churches (distinct from Gnostic sects)?Edit
Thank you for the chance to clarify, as I laid out above, albeit crudely, the older "satanist sects" don't actually appear to be satanists, but rather a byproduct of sectarian in-fighting. As the wiki notes:
In the ensuing Reformation and Counter-Reformation, both Catholics and Protestants accused each other of deliberately being in league with Satan.
Those Christian groups regarded as heretics by the Roman Catholic Church were treated differently, with theologians arguing that they were deliberately worshiping the Devil.
And:
However, in their summary of the evidence for the trials, the historians Geoffrey Scarre and John Callow thought it "without doubt" that some of those accused in the trials had been guilty of employing magic in an attempt to harm their enemies, and were thus genuinely guilty of witchcraft.
Essentially, the wiki attempts to explain the context and usage of the word "satanism" throughout the ages but in the majority of cases, it's openly admitting that the term was used merely as slander, not so much as an actual church of satan. The Knights Templar case involving baphomet seems closer to my question, but I think we're still just at a cursory understanding of the matter.
What I'm interested in is an objective study of the earliest known church of satan, not a politically-charged account of sectarian rivalry. Maybe in simple terms: self-proclaimed satanists. I pointed the above cases out to delineate between actually worshiping satan and being called by adversaries that one is "in league with satan." This may apply to Gnostic sects or some practices of witchcraft.
