What did the heretics preach? How did the Catholic Church fight against heretics?

In the IV century AD. E. Emperor Constantine transformed the persecuted Christian religion into an official religion, accepted everywhere in the vast expanses of the Roman Empire. After this, persecuted and oppressed supporters of Christianity themselves began to reject and pursue their enemies, attributing to them unorthodox, uncommon beliefs. At the same time, the Roman bishops worked out a system of views and concepts, which later became the basis of Catholicism. Everything that did not fall under this system, was despised, and later severely pursued. People who do not agree with generally accepted religious views have been called heretics, and the teachings themselves have become known as heresies.

Social causes of heresy

The emergence of heresies in Christianity is usually associated with the social and ideological changes that have arisen in the life of Christians in the period of persecution. The poorest strata of the population sought in a new religion of reconciliation and equality. Therefore, the gradual process of enriching the clergy, strengthening the administrative principle, apostasy in the period of persecution could not but cause condemnation on the part of ordinary believers. The ideals of a modest and simple early Christian life continued to live in the poorest sections of the population. The contradictory moods of the masses, the various interpretations of the Christian teaching and the general discontent with the well-fed life of the higher clergy, and gave impetus to the emergence and dissemination of ideas that preached heretics with whom the Catholic Church waged a long and bloody struggle.

Niceneas Cathedral

In 313, Emperor Constantine issued the Act of Tolerance, according to which all citizens were given freedom of religion. This document, later called the Milan Edict, essentially designated Christianity as a full-fledged religion. After that, in 325, the Ecumenical Council took place in Nicaea, where the word "heresy" was first pronounced. The first heretic was Bishop Arius, who had previously been considered one of the pillars of Christianity. Arius preached the creation, the secondary character of Jesus Christ in comparison with God. The orthodox was the equality between God and Jesus Christ, which later formed the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity. Arius and his followers, named Arians, became the first bearers of the ideas preached by heretics.

Centuries without heretics

In 384, Priscillian was executed, the last of those officially convicted of believing in the Roman Empire. But the Catholic Church has adopted and actively applied the political vision and methods of strengthening the power left in the inheritance by this powerful state. For centuries Catholicism did not pay attention to the different interpretations of the New Testament, but actively converted European nations to Christianity. And only after the emergence of the Carolingian empire - that is, with the strengthening of secular power, at the turn of the millennia, Catholicism became a universally accepted religion, and in the chronicles and annals of that time the word "heresy" reappeared.

Causes

Monks who lived at the beginning of the second millennium often described the healing abilities of holy relics and various miracles occurring with believers. In these same records, there is also an extremely disapproving mention of those who mocked the holy relics, perhaps the first heretics were those who did not recognize the "holy miracles". These ridicule resulted in protests that took place in the name of the Gospel - the gospel of meekness, justice, poverty and humility, the gospel of the first Christians and apostles. Those views that the heretics preached were based on evangelistic concepts that reflected, in their opinion, the very essence of Christianity.

Beginning of persecution

According to medieval annals and chronicles, those who were called heretics, denied the authority of the Councils, refused to baptize children, did not recognize the sacrament of marriage and confession. The first example of how the church fought against heretics, reached historians, dates back to 1022. The sentences of the dissidents burned in Orleans brought to posterity the essence of what the heretics preached. These people did not recognize the sacrament of the sacrament, baptism was carried out with one laying on of hands, denied the cult of the Crucifixion. It can not be assumed that the heretics were from the lower strata of the population. On the contrary, the first victims of the fires were educated at the time, the confessors, with the help of theology, justifying their dissent.

The execution in Orleans opened the way to severe repression. The struggle against heretics has set fire to fires in Aquitaine and Toulouse. Bishops were brought to the whole community of Gentiles, who spoke before the church courts with the Bible in their hands, proving and explaining with the quotations from the Holy Scripture the correctness of what the heretics preached. How the Catholic Church fought against heretics is evident from the verdicts of church judges. Sentenced in full force went to the fire, which spared neither children nor the elderly. The bonfires in Europe are a vivid example of how the church fought against heretics.

In the XII century, fires flamed in the Rhine lands. There were so many heritics that the monk Everwin de Steinfeld sought help from the Cistercian monk Bernard, who had the reputation of a consistent and cruel pursuer of the faithless. After large-scale pogroms and raids, fires flamed in Cologne. Judicial investigations and sentences by dissidents were no longer a vague accusation of witchcraft and licentiousness, but contained clear points of disagreement among heretics with orthodox church concepts. The condemned and condemned "apostles of Satan" accepted their death so persistently that they aroused the anxiety and murmur of the crowd that was present at the time of the burning.

Foci of heresy

Despite the bitter repression of the church, the centers of heresy arose throughout Europe. The popular notion of dualism, as the struggle between good and evil, has acquired a second wind in heretical currents. The principle of dualism was that the world was created not by God, but by the rebellious angel Lucifer, which is why there is so much evil, hunger, death and disease in it. At the end of the XII century, dualism was considered one of the most serious heresies. The concept of the battle between good and evil, the angel and the dragon, was widespread in the early Middle Ages, but the church began to struggle with this idea much later. This was due to the fact that in the 12th century, royal and ecclesiastical power was strengthened in Europe, life was relatively stabilized, and the principle of dualism - struggle - became unnecessary and even dangerous. The power and power of God, and therefore of the Church, is what the heretics opposed, and that was a danger to the strengthening of Catholicism.

The spread of heresies

In the 12th century, the main centers of heresy were the lands of Southern Europe. Communities were built in the image and likeness of Catholic churches, but, unlike the orthodox clergy, the management of the church was given place to women. Heretics in the Middle Ages were called "good men" and "good women". Historians of later time began to call them cathars. This name came from the Middle Ages, the word cattier is translated, like a sorcerer, bowing before a cat.

It is known that the Cathars had their own church institutions, held their cathedrals, attracted new and new adherents to their ranks. If France and Germany destroyed dissent in the bud, then in Italy and Languedoc, the Cathari expanded and strengthened their influence. Many noble families of the time accepted a new faith and gave food and shelter to the persecuted coreligionists and spread the teachings that the heretics preached.

How the Catholic Church fought against heretics

At the beginning of the 13th c. Innocent III ascended to the papal throne, whose aim was to unite the whole European world, to return the southern European lands to the monastery of the church. After a series of setbacks, the Catholic Church, having assumed all the authority to eradicate heresies and having entered into an alliance with the King of France, led a crusade against dissidents. Twenty years of unceasing wars, massive burning of people led to the complete capture of the Languedoc and the planting of the Catholic faith. But there were whole families and communities of people who secretly preserved the customs of their ancestors and resisted the conquerors. It was with the goal of identifying and eradicating the unruly the Inquisition was created.

The Inquisition

In 1233 the papacy created a special body that had the right to impose repentance and punish unruly people. The power of the Inquisition was transferred to the Dominicans and Franciscans, who carried a new sermon in the Southern Lands, based on the dogmas of the Catholic Church. Instead of open armed terror, the Inquisition used denunciations and slander as a tool to identify and destroy the recalcitrant. In comparison with the mass executions of the past, the Inquisition killed a few, but it was even more frightening to be in her hands. Simple repentants could get rid of confiscation of property and public repentance, for those who defended their right to believe, the verdict was a bonfire. They did not spare even the dead - their remains were exhumed and burned.

Thus, the Catholic Church and heretics waged an unequal battle for the same faith, for the same God. The whole history of the formation of Catholicism is covered by fires of those who died for the faith. The extermination of heretics served as yet another proof of how the one-powerful Church, in the name of Christ, destroyed another, weaker, Church.