The article has three linked parts. The first one recovers and opposes, in terms of interpretation, the work of the two greatest scholars of Messianism in Brazil, Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz and Duglas Teixeira Monteiro, presenting a summary of the main questions and controversies. Other scholars who analyzed "classical" social movements in Brazil, like Contestado, Juazeiro, Canudos and similar ones, mainly rural and within a traditional sociability framework, are also discussed in the article. In the second part, an exhaustive account of the most recent cases, beginning from the middle of the last century, is carried out in order to verify if and how these new movements reproduce the structure and dynamics of the old ones or, on the contrary, how they innovate and transform themselves. Finally, based on these factual and interpretative considerations, some of the questions raised by the coordinators of the ANPOCS Thematic Group of Religion and Society are discussed concerning the "mileniarism" in the new millennium.
Messianism; Messianic movement; "Mileniarism"; Religion; Imaginary