History UsefulNotes / HeresiesAndHeretics

* Catharism's vogue was in the late 12th and early 13th century. Technically a mixture of non-Christian religions reworked with Christian terminology, there were a few joining principles that connected the various sects under the name. ''Very'' similar to Gnosticism above, the Cathars held a fierce antipathy for the material universe, which they held was created by an [[GodOfEvil evil deity]] (hence, matter is evil), but there exists a [[GodOfGood Good Deity]] who should be worshipped instead (there's a resemblance to UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}} here). One of the largest Cathar sects was the Albigensians, who wielded a great deal of power in southern France during the 13th century, before being obliterated by the French crown and various crusaders in the Albigensian Crusade. They held that the spirit was created by the good God, but imprisoned by the evil one in a physical body. Hence, the bearing of children - the imprisoning of another human soul in a body - was one of the greatest possible evils; logically, marriage and vaginal sex were forbidden, but anal sex might be technically permissible. Since Catharism was believed to have arisen in Bulgaria (among other things, it was connected to another Gnostic sect, the Bogomils), they were also called ''bougres'' ("Bulgars") in French, from which we get "bugger" and "buggery" for "anal sex" or someone who practices it. They weren't all about the buggery though; there were plenty of fasts that bordered on wilful starvation and lots of severe mortification was practised. Leaders went about in voluntary poverty. Some sects also seemed to believe in ritual suicide, fasting to death after they had been purified.

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. Arianism found a particular audience among the East Germanic-speaking peoples; though many West Germanic-speaking tribes (especially the Swabians, Burgundians, and Lombards) were also largely converted to Arianism at first, they switched to Nicene Catholicism quickly when it suited them.[[note]]The biggest West Germanic group--the Franks--had some minor interest in Arianism, but moved to Nicene Catholicism before that got much traction; most of the Frisians were in the same boat. The remaining West Germanic speakers--being the Bavarians (who were too far northeast), the Angles and Jutes (who were in Britain), and the Saxons (some of whom were too far northeast and some of whom were in Britain)--and the North Germanic-speakers of Scandinavia didn't really get Christianity until a few centuries later, at which point Arianism was long gone.[[/note]] However, the East Germanic-speaking Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. Arianism found a particular audience among the East Germanic-speaking peoples; though many West Germanic-speaking tribes (especially the Swabians, Burgundians, and Lombards) were also largely converted to Arianism at first, they switched to Nicene Catholicism quickly when it suited them.[[note]]The biggest West Germanic group--the Franks--had some minor interest in Arianism, but moved to Nicene Catholicism before that got much traction; most of the Frisians were in the same boat. The remaining West Germanic speakers--being the Bavarians (who were too far northeast), the Angles and Jutes (who were in Britain), the Saxons (some of whom were too far northeast and some of whom were in Britain)--and the North Germanic-speakers of Scandinavia didn't really get Christianity until a few centuries later, at which point Arianism was long gone.[[/note]] However, the East Germanic-speaking Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. Arianism found a particular audience among the East Germanic-speaking peoples; though many West Germanic-speaking tribes (especially the Swabians, Burgundians, and Lombards) were also largely converted to Arianism at first, they switched to Nicene Catholicism quickly when it suited them.[[note]]The biggest West Germanic group--the Franks--had some minor interest in Arianism, but moved to Nicene Catholicism before that got much traction; most of the Frisians were in the same boat. The remaining West Germanic speakers--the Saxons both on the Continent and in Britain, as well as the British Saxons' neighbours the Angles and Jutes--and the North Germanic-speakers of Scandinavia didn't really get Christianity until a few centuries later, at which point Arianism was long gone.[[/note]] However, the East Germanic-speaking Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

** In Galileo's day, heliocentrism was actually gaining [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment considerable consideration when considering]] the motion of the stars from an earthly perspective. A Catholic cleric up in Poland[[note]]We won't get into whether he was Polish--Wiki/TheOtherWiki has that covered--but he was definitely working in Poland (his main observatory in Frombork was ''de facto'' in Poland-Lithuania).[[/note]] named Nicolaus Copernicus (for whom is named "The Copernican Revolution") famously brought heliocentrism into vogue. He wrote a long text on the subject, ''On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs'', but put it into the care of a Protestant friend to be published after his death (the book, which contains an excellent account of heliocentricity, was dedicated to Pope Paul III). The friend, a Lutheran clergyman named Andreas Osiander, anticipated the massive ramifications this theory had for Protestant scriptural interpretation (Martin Luther seemed to condemn the new theory[[note]]Luther calling Copernicus an "upstart astrologer" probably didn't help.[[/note]]) and, the likelihood that it might be condemned; to counter this, Osiander prefaced the book with the claim that the descriptions within were theoretical only, and were only employed to simplify computations... something Copernicus never intended.

* Feeneyism -- Quite possibly the youngest heresy on this list, and one of the few true American-born heresies, this one erupted sometime around World War Two, when Fr. Leonard Feeney, a Jesuit priest, began to preach a very distorted version of the Church tenet ''extra Ecclesiam, nulla salus'', or "No salvation outside the Church." Feeney taught this to mean essentially that everyone who was not a formally baptized Catholic was, without a doubt, going to or already had gone to Hell, considered heretical due both to the Catholic teaching that it is impossible to know with certainty who is in Hell (or to declare on such matters dogmatically)[[note]]The "declare dogmatically" bit is important; a Catholic isn't breaking any rules by saying certain people are in Hell or are probably in Hell if they were doing so--for example--only as [[Literature/TheDivineComedy part of an obvious literary device in a poem expounding on Christian principles of personal spiritual growth]] and ''totally'' not seriously suggesting that those people are actually in Hell. Right, [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante]]? You weren't ''seriously'' saying there are Popes in Hell, ''right''?[[/note]] and a denial of several Catholic teachings on the salvation of non-Catholics. Feeney was a notorious and vocal anti-Semite, so the implications of this doctrine, i.e. that Jews were categorically damned, was neither lost on him nor unintentional. The fact that he was also open to declaring anyone who differed with him even slightly a heretic, [[RefugeInAudacity up to and including a previous Pope, Pius IX,]] didn't exactly endear him to the church, and his interpretation of ''nulla salus'' was NOT from any magisterial authority, but from his private interpretation of Scripture.[[note]]Namely, he interpreted Mark 16 more strictly than was considered acceptable by the Church. Feeney's explanation was that the "true" doctrine had been gradually undermined by renegade clergy.[[/note]] In the end, Feeney was ordered by Pope Pius XII to knock it off and come to Rome to explain himself, and when he refused, he was dismissed from the Jesuits in 1949 and ultimately excommunicated in 1953, an excommunication only lifted as recently as 1972.[[note]]The fact that the excommunication was lifted without a recantation is sometimes used by Feeney's fans as a justification for supporting this view. Needless to say, that's not how excommunication works, and Feeneyism has been consistently condemned by the Church since then. Ironically, the rescinding of the excommunication was probably motivated by a desire not to have an aging priest be denied the final sacraments just for being a stubborn ass, meaning Feeney was a recipient of the mercy he militantly attempted to deny to others.[[/note]]

* Feeneyism -- Quite possibly the youngest heresy on this list, and one of the few true American-born heresies, this one erupted sometime around World War Two, when Fr. Leonard Feeney, a Jesuit priest, began to preach a very distorted version of the Church tenet ''extra Ecclesiam, nulla salus'', or "No salvation outside the Church." Feeney taught this to mean essentially that everyone who was not a formally baptized Catholic was, without a doubt, going to or already had gone to Hell, considered heretical due both to the Catholic teaching that it is impossible to know with certainty who is in Hell (or to declare on such matters dogmatically) and a denial of several Catholic teachings on the salvation of non-Catholics. Feeney was a notorious and vocal anti-Semite, so the implications of this doctrine, i.e. that Jews were categorically damned, was neither lost on him nor unintentional. The fact that he was also open to declaring anyone who differed with him even slightly a heretic, [[RefugeInAudacity up to and including a previous Pope, Pius IX,]] didn't exactly endear him to the church, and his interpretation of ''nulla salus'' was NOT from any magisterial authority, but from his private interpretation of Scripture.[[note]]Namely, he interpreted Mark 16 more strictly than was considered acceptable by the Church. Feeney's explanation was that the "true" doctrine had been gradually undermined by renegade clergy.[[/note]] In the end, Feeney was ordered by Pope Pius XII to knock it off and come to Rome to explain himself, and when he refused, he was dismissed from the Jesuits in 1949 and ultimately excommunicated in 1953, an excommunication only lifted as recently as 1972.[[note]]The fact that the excommunication was lifted without a recantation is sometimes used by Feeney's fans as a justification for supporting this view. Needless to say, that's not how excommunication works, and Feeneyism has been consistently condemned by the Church since then. Ironically, the rescinding of the excommunication was probably motivated by a desire not to have an aging priest be denied the final sacraments just for being a stubborn ass, meaning Feeney was a recipient of the mercy he militantly attempted to deny to others.[[/note]]

* Americanism -- A lesser-known heresy, largely due to how oddly specific it is, condemned by Pope Leo XIII in a papal encyclical and a letter to Archbishop of Baltimore, the ''de facto'' leader of the Church in America. Sometimes called a "phantom heresy", due to heated debate about whether or not it genuinely exists, Americanism was the perception, largely by European clergy, that the church in America was overly individualistic in its approach to religious matters. Put more bluntly, it was the idea that American Catholics were free to decide for themselves which Church doctrines they believed, due to the American culture of religious liberty. Leo XIII was particularly concerned about the American tendency to blithely ignore the Church's social teachings -- particularly concerning divorce and economics -- and the American attitude towards the vowed priesthood and other religious institutions, which skewed towards the Protestant side of things. The leaders of the American church were, as you might expect, not terribly flattered by this characterization and denied that it had merit. In response, they asserted that, much like monophysitism above, this one was a proxy for a cultural conflict within the church, namely French and German conservatives projecting their anxieties about growing theological liberalism in Europe onto the church in America (whose hierarchy was diverse, but [[IrishPriest more Irish than anything else]][[note]]Note that because of the historic suppression of the Irish Church by the Protestant British authorities, and the gigantic Irish emigration in the 19th century, the existence of large numbers of Irish priests--let alone Irish prelates--was something not seen in over 300 years.[[/note]]). Leo XIII himself vacillated on the issue, due in part to being at least somewhat sympathetic to both sides.

* Americanism -- A lesser-known heresy, largely due to how oddly specific it is, condemned by Pope Leo XIII in a papal encyclical and a letter to Archbishop of Baltimore, the ''de facto'' leader of the Church in America. Sometimes called a "phantom heresy", due to heated debate about whether or not it genuinely exists, Americanism was the perception, largely by European clergy, that the church in America was overly individualistic in its approach to religious matters. Put more bluntly, it was the idea that American Catholics were free to decide for themselves which Church doctrines they believed, due to the American culture of religious liberty. Leo XIII was particularly concerned about the American tendency to blithely ignore the Church's social teachings -- particularly concerning divorce and economics -- and the American attitude towards the vowed priesthood and other religious institutions, which skewed towards the Protestant side of things. The leaders of the American church were, as you might expect, not terribly flattered by this characterization and denied that it had merit. In response, they asserted that, much like monophysitism above, this one was a proxy for a cultural conflict within the church, namely French and German conservatives projecting their anxieties about growing theological liberalism in Europe onto the church in America. Leo XIII himself vacillated on the issue, due in part to being at least somewhat sympathetic to both sides.

* Pre-Christian example: the [[AncientEgypt 18th-dynasty pharaoh]] UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}} radically and single-handedly overhauled the Egyptian religion from polytheism into sort of a proto-monotheism. He got away with it at the time because, well, [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem he was the king]], but the religion reverted immediately after he died and Akhenaten got the UnPerson treatment from his successors.

Iconoclasm, as a political issue in the Byzantine Empire, lasted from around 726 to 843, with a hiatus from 787 to 814, and wound up - essentially - as a wrangle between Church and State over Imperial power over the Church (the Church won).[[note]]To give an idea of the ongoing effect: Centuries later, another emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, seized icons for their gold in the face of the simultaneous advance of the Turks from the east and Robert Guiscard's Normans from the west. The Church raised the specter of iconoclasm to drum up opposition to this move and seemed likely to raise an uproar. However, they didn't count on Alexios cleverly deflecting these accusations by being crassly materialistic about his grab: he said he had no problem with icons, it was just that the Emperor was empowered to [[IDidWhatIHadTo do whatever was necessary--including seize holy images and other Church property--to save Christendom]]. He also distracted the Church establishment by accusing a prominent philosopher of heresy. Whether or not the icon seizure worked, it certainly didn't doom the nation; Alexios' reign marked the beginning of the last expansion of the Empire.[[/note]] Iconoclasm briefly reappeared in the initial stages of UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation mostly as a push back against the perceived decadence of the Catholics, but largely disappeared over the years, the only noticeable remnant being most Protestants' tendency to wear a bare cross instead of a Crucifix and building fairly austere and unadorned churches (until the High Church Anglicans decided to up the "High Church" part with the Oxford Movement, though they still don’t do crucifixes as much as Catholics).[[note]]This sets aside the somewhat complicated High Church Lutheranism that formed the state religion in the post-Reformation Nordic Countries. It's really not worth getting into unless you have a particular fascination with Danish or Swedish history.[[/note]]

Iconoclasm, as a political issue in the Byzantine Empire, lasted from around 726 to 843, with a hiatus from 787 to 814, and wound up - essentially - as a wrangle between Church and State over Imperial power over the Church (the Church won).[[note]]To give an idea of the ongoing effect: Centuries later, another emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, seized icons for their gold in the face of the simultaneous advance of the Turks from the east and Robert Guiscard's Normans from the west. The Church raised the specter of iconoclasm to drum up opposition to this move and seemed likely to raise an uproar. However, they didn't count on Alexios cleverly deflecting these accusations by being crassly materialistic about his grab: he said he had no problem with icons, it was just that the Emperor was empowered to do whatever was necessary--including seize holy images and other Church property--to save Christendom. He also distracted the Church establishment by accusing a prominent philosopher of heresy. Whether or not the icon seizure worked, it certainly didn't doom the nation; Alexios' reign marked the beginning of the last expansion of the Empire.[[/note]] Iconoclasm briefly reappeared in the initial stages of UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation mostly as a push back against the perceived decadence of the Catholics, but largely disappeared over the years, the only noticeable remnant being most Protestants' tendency to wear a bare cross instead of a Crucifix and building fairly austere and unadorned churches (until the High Church Anglicans decided to up the "High Church" part with the Oxford Movement, though they still don’t do crucifixes as much as Catholics).[[note]]This sets aside the somewhat complicated High Church Lutheranism that formed the state religion in the post-Reformation Nordic Countries. It's really not worth getting into unless you have a particular fascination with Danish or Swedish history.[[/note]]

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. Arianism found a particular audience among the East Germanic-speaking peoples; though many West Germanic-speaking tribes (especially the Swabians, Burgundians, and Lombards) were also largely converted to Arianism at first, they switched to Nicene Catholicism quickly when it suited them.[[note]]The North Germanic-speakers of Scandinavia didn't really get Christianity until a few centuries later, at which point Arianism was long gone.[[/note]] However, the East Germanic-speaking Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

** Sunni and Shi'a Muslims don't generally regard each other as heretics. The difference was mostly a political one rather than a theological one. Comparison can be drawn between Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church, more or less. [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment Let's leave it at that]].
* And finally, all three of the Abrahamic religions "tolerate" (or not) each other to various degrees, they only thing they can agree on being their mutual distaste of polytheism.[[note]]And even that is not consistent. Some Christians-historical Catholics, at that-and Jews don't mind the existence of other gods so long as theirs is regarded as the top dog and the focus of worship[[/note]] '''[[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment Let's leave it at that]]'''.

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. Arianism found a particular audience among the East Germanic-speaking peoples; though many West Germanic-speaking tribes (especially the Swabians, Burgundians, and Lombards) were also largely converted to Arianism at first, they switched to Nicene Catholicism quickly when it suited them. However, the East Germanic-speaking Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. Arianism found a particular audience among the East Germanic-speaking peoples; though many West Germanic-speaking tribes (especially the Swabians and Lombards) were also largely converted to Arianism at first, they switched to Nicene Catholicism quickly when it suited them. However, the East Germanic-speaking Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

Arianism hung around long after this, however, having already been spread by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas to many of the Germanic tribes entering/invading the Empire in the 4th century. The Visigoths (in Spain), Ostrogoths (in Italy) and Vandals (in North Africa) would remain Arian for centuries, and the Vandals, in particular, made persecution of Nicene Catholics state policy for basically the whole existence of their kingdom. (This probably contributed to the bad press the Vandals got from the Catholic world.) The Visigoths and Ostrogoths also engaged in occasional persecutions to show the mostly Catholic locals who was in charge whenever they got uppity. Arianism only really faded away in the 6th century, after the Visigoths converted to Catholicism for political reasons and the Ostrogoths and Vandals were conquered by Justinian's resurgent Eastern Empire. However, hints of Arianism, or less specifically, non-trinitarianism, are still extant with modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, among other sects.

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Protestantism]]: You've probably heard something about [[UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation a Reformation in the 16th century]], in which thousands of Christians broke with the Catholic Church. Protestantism is not a specific doctrine or belief-set but rather an umbrella term for thousands of different theological divisions (which can generally be un-splintered into less than two dozen religious "traditions"), that share doctrines of ''Sola Scriptura'' (theology should be formed solely by consideration of scripture) and ''Sola Fide'' (human beings are justified "by faith alone")[[note]]Centuries of poor definitions and raised tempers led this to be a major point of contention between Catholics and Protestants, who argue over what role "work" has in human entry into heaven; the assumption was that Catholic emphasis on placing "work" besides "faith" led to an overemphasis on the role of human action similar to Pelagianism, which was rejected long ago-[[NotSoDifferent it turns out that]] in the Protestant definition of "faith", the work is a natural product of and inseparable from faith, whereas Catholics refer to "faith" as something along the lines of mere intellectual belief. In short, there's really not much of a difference along those lines, as exhibited when the Catholic Church and a number of Lutheran "bishops" signed a joint declaration of faith several years ago.[[/note]]. The great diversity of Protestantism has two primary roots: a general distrust for human authority and the "doctrine" of private judgment, the latter of which denies the Church its claim to the infallible right to interpret Scripture, and indeed pits the Church ''against'' Scripture.\\

** In Galileo's day, heliocentrism was actually gaining [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment considerable consideration when considering]] the motion of the stars from an earthly perspective. A Catholic cleric up in Poland[[note]]We won't get into whether he was Polish--Wiki/TheOtherWiki has that covered--but he was definitely working in Poland[[/note]] named Nicolaus Copernicus (for whom is named "The Copernican Revolution") famously brought heliocentrism into vogue. He wrote a long text on the subject, ''On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs'', but put it into the care of a Protestant friend to be published after his death (the book, which contains an excellent account of heliocentricity, was dedicated to Pope Paul III). The friend, a Lutheran clergyman named Andreas Osiander, anticipated the massive ramifications this theory had for Protestant scriptural interpretation (Martin Luther seemed to condemn the new theory[[note]]Luther calling Copernicus an "upstart astrologer" probably didn't help.[[/note]]) and, the likelihood that it might be condemned; to counter this, Osiander prefaced the book with the claim that the descriptions within were theoretical only, and were only employed to simplify computations... something Copernicus never intended.

** In Galileo's day, heliocentrism was actually gaining [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment considerable consideration when considering]] the motion of the stars from an earthly perspective. A Catholic cleric up in Poland[[note]]We won't get into whether he was Polish--TheOtherWiki has that covered--but he was definitely working in Poland[[/note]] named Nicolaus Copernicus (for whom is named "The Copernican Revolution") famously brought heliocentrism into vogue. He wrote a long text on the subject, ''On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs'', but put it into the care of a Protestant friend to be published after his death (the book, which contains an excellent account of heliocentricity, was dedicated to Pope Paul III). The friend, a Lutheran clergyman named Andreas Osiander, anticipated the massive ramifications this theory had for Protestant scriptural interpretation (Martin Luther seemed to condemn the new theory[[note]]Luther calling Copernicus an "upstart astrologer" probably didn't help.[[/note]]) and, the likelihood that it might be condemned; to counter this, Osiander prefaced the book with the claim that the descriptions within were theoretical only, and were only employed to simplify computations... something Copernicus never intended.

** In Galileo's day, heliocentrism was actually gaining [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment considerable consideration when considering]] the motion of the stars from an earthly perspective. A Catholic cleric named Nicolaus Copernicus (for whom is named "The Copernican Revolution") famously brought heliocentrism into vogue. He wrote a long text on the subject, ''On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs'', but put it into the care of a Protestant friend to be published after his death (the book, which contains an excellent account of heliocentricity, was dedicated to Pope Paul III). The friend, a Lutheran clergyman named Andreas Osiander, anticipated the massive ramifications this theory had for Protestant scriptural interpretation (Martin Luther seemed to condemn the new theory[[note]]Luther calling Copernicus an "upstart astrologer" probably didn't help.[[/note]]) and, the likelihood that it might be condemned; to counter this, Osiander prefaced the book with the claim that the descriptions within were theoretical only, and were only employed to simplify computations... something Copernicus never intended.

* Americanism -- A lesser-known heresy, largely due to how oddly specific it is, condemned by Pope Leo XIII in a papal encyclical and a letter to Archbishop of Baltimore, the ''de facto'' leader of the Church in America. Americanism was the belief that, due to the political and customary uniqueness of the country, different religious rules applied to American Catholics than to Catholics elsewhere. Put more bluntly, it was the idea that American Catholics were free to decide for themselves which Church doctrines they believed, due to the American promise of religious liberty. Leo was particularly concerned about the American tendency to blithely ignore the Church's social teachings --- particularly concerning divorce and economics -- and the American attitude towards the vowed priesthood and other religious institutions, which skewed towards the Protestant side of things. These tendencies were particularly prevalent among second and third-generation Irish immigrants, whose desire for assimilation often meant novel interpretations of the religion that were more friendly to American culture and politics. The leaders of the American church were, as you might expect, not terribly flattered by this characterization and denied that it had merit. As a result, there is still debate today about whether Americanism is a genuine heresy or not (which is not helped by the fact that Pope Leo himself vacillated on the issue somewhat).
* Feeneyism -- Quite possibly the youngest heresy on this list, and one of the few true American-born heresies, this one erupted sometime around World War Two, when Fr. Leonard Feeney, a Jesuit priest, began to preach a very distorted version of the Church tenet ''extra Ecclesiam, nulla salus'', or "No salvation outside the Church." Feeney taught this to mean essentially that everyone who was not a formally baptized Catholic was, without a doubt, going to or already had gone to Hell. [[note]]The Church itself teaches something somewhat different-- that since all graces come from God through His Son, Christ, those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ or the Church still can be saved through processes mysterious to human eyes. More prosaically, many Catholic theologians are willing to concede the possibility that baptism in other Christian denominations--particularly ones like the Orthodox who have few if any disagreements on theology--"counts" as being within "the Church" for salvation purposes. It should also be noted that while the Church believes in Hell, and that in the abstract some, perhaps many, people will go or are already there, it is forbidden to (solemnly and seriously) declare anyone specifically as being in or going to Hell. (The "solemnly and seriously" bit is important; a Catholic isn't breaking any rules by saying certain people are in Hell if they were doing so--for example--only as [[Literature/TheDivineComedy part of an obvious literary device in a poem expounding on Christian principles of personal spiritual growth]] and ''totally'' not seriously suggesting that those people are actually in Hell. Right, [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante]]? You weren't seriously saying there are Popes in Hell, ''right''?).[[/note]] The implications of Feeney's belief were odious -- that millions of souls who existed either before Christ or before the Church reached them were damned out of hand by God himself even though they had no chance to receive baptism. It also didn't help that Feeney was apparently an anti-Semite, rivaling the more well-known Fr. Charles Coughlin of Detroit in intensity. He also mocked a previous Pope, Pius IX, for claiming that unbaptized babies could be saved due to having no personal mortal sins on their soul at the time of death, [[RefugeInAudacity calling Pius IX, a beloved Pope, a heretic]]. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Finally]], his interpretation of ''nulla salus'' was NOT from any magisterial [[note]]Church teaching[[/note]] authority, but from his private interpretation of Scripture. In the end, Feeney was ordered by Pope Pius XII to knock it off and come to Rome to explain himself, and when he refused, he was dismissed from the Jesuits in 1949 and ultimately excommunicated in 1953, an excommunication only lifted as recently as 1972.[[note]]The fact that the excommunication was lifted without a recantation is sometimes used by Feeney's fans as a justification for supporting this view. Needless to say, that's not how excommunication works, and Feeneyism has been consistently condemned by the Church since then.[[/note]]

Iconoclasm, as a political issue in the Byzantine Empire, lasted from around 726 to 843, with a hiatus from 787 to 814, and wound up - essentially - as a wrangle between Church and State over Imperial power over the Church (the Church won).[[note]]To give an idea of the ongoing effect: Centuries later, another emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, seized icons for their gold in the face of the simultaneous advance of the Turks from the east and Robert Guiscard's Normans from the west. The Church raised the specter of iconoclasm to drum up opposition to this move and seemed likely to raise an uproar. However, they didn't count on Alexios cleverly deflecting these accusations by being crassly materialistic about his grab: he said he had no problem with icons, it was just that the Emperor was empowered to do whatever was necessary--including seize holy images and other Church property--to save Christendom. He also distracted the Church establishment by accusing a prominent philosopher of heresy. Whether or not the icon seizure worked, it certainly didn't doom the nation; Alexios' reign marked the beginning of the last expansion of the Empire.[[/note]] Iconoclasm briefly reappeared in the initial stages of UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation mostly as a push back against the perceived decadence of the Catholics, but largely disappeared over the years, the only noticeable remnant being most Protestants' tendency to wear a bare cross instead of a Crucifix and building fairly austere and unadorned churches (until the High Church Anglicans decided to up the "High Church" part with the Oxford Movement, though they still don’t do crucifixes as much as Catholics).

** Having publicly mocked the Pope, alienating the Jesuits to boot with attacks on two of their astronomers, Galileo's actions resulted in the famous trial. In course of the trial, Galileo stayed in fine quarters at the Apostolic Palace while his meals were prepared by the best chef in town. While he eventually recanted his teachings, he was not tortured (he was only threatened); he was actually merely placed under house arrest, at a fine mansion in the countryside belonging to a friend... and given a manservant. Galileo was not explicitly declared a heretic, though he was found to be "''vehemently suspect''" of it; the testimony from his trial (Galileo was tried before an ordinary tribunal) was brought before a group of ten cardinals. Three of them refused to sign his verdict, but his works were eventually condemned.

** Another proponent of heliocentrism was Johannes Kepler, a Protestant who expounded on Copernicus' work. Kepler synthesized Copernicus's system with the observations of his former teacher, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, and added mathematical precision to both Brahe's observations and Copernicus's system. As he did not couch his developments, Kepler faced opposition from fellow Protestants, but found a welcome reception from a number of Jesuits notable for scientific achievement.

** Another proponent of heliocentrism was Johannes Kepler, a Protestant who expounded on Copernicus' work; Kepler, who did not couch his developments, faced opposition from fellow Protestants, but found a welcome reception from a number of Jesuits notable for scientific achievement.

* Feeneyism -- Quite possibly the youngest heresy on this list, and one of the few true American-born heresies, this one erupted sometime around World War Two, when Fr. Leonard Feeney, a Jesuit priest, began to preach a very distorted version of the Church tenet ''extra Ecclesiam, nulla salus'', or "No salvation outside the Church." Feeney taught this to mean essentially that everyone who was not a formally baptized Catholic was, without a doubt, going to or already had gone to Hell. [[note]]The Church itself teaches something somewhat different-- that since all graces come from God through His Son, Christ, those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ or the Church still can be saved through processes mysterious to human eyes. It should also be noted that while the Church believes in Hell, and that in the abstract some, perhaps many, people will go or are already there, it is forbidden to (solemnly and seriously) declare anyone specifically as being in or going to Hell. (The "solemnly and seriously" bit is important; a Catholic isn't breaking any rules by saying certain people are in Hell if they were doing so--for example--only as [[Literature/TheDivineComedy part of an obvious literary device in a poem expounding on Christian principles of personal spiritual growth]] and ''totally'' not seriously suggesting that those people are actually in Hell. Right, [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante]]? You weren't seriously saying there are Popes in Hell, ''right''?).[[/note]] The implications of Feeney's belief were odious -- that millions of souls who existed either before Christ or before the Church reached them were damned out of hand by God himself even though they had no chance to receive baptism. It also didn't help that Feeney was apparently an anti-Semite, rivaling the more well-known Fr. Charles Coughlin of Detroit in intensity. He also mocked a previous Pope, Pius IX, for claiming that unbaptized babies could be saved due to having no personal mortal sins on their soul at the time of death, [[RefugeInAudacity calling Pius IX, a beloved Pope, a heretic]]. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Finally]], his interpretation of ''nulla salus'' was NOT from any magisterial [[note]]Church teaching[[/note]] authority, but from his private interpretation of Scripture. In the end, Feeney was ordered by Pope Pius XII to knock it off and come to Rome to explain himself, and when he refused, he was dismissed from the Jesuits in 1949 and ultimately excommunicated in 1953, an excommunication only lifted as recently as 1972.[[note]]The fact that the excommunication was lifted without a recantation is sometimes used by Feeney's fans as a justification for supporting this view. Needless to say, that's not how excommunication works, and Feeneyism has been consistently condemned by the Church since then.[[/note]]

The issue was that proponents of heliocentrism were unable to counter the strongest argument against it, which had been proposed by ''Aristotle himself''--if heliocentrism were true, there should be observable parallax shifts in the position of the stars as the Earth moved. Now, there ''are'' observable parallax shifts, but the technology to demonstrate that hadn't been developed until the eighteenth century--decades ''after Galileo's death''.[[note]]The distance between the stars is several light-years, very large in comparison to Earth's orbit, with a diameter of about 16.6 light-'''minutes'''[[/note]]. Until that point, the evidence suggested that the stars' positions were fixed relative to the Earth, and thus, only the Sun, Moon, and other planets were moving. Copernicus' (correct) explanation that the stars were too far away to exhibit visible parallax was not accepted, even by non-geocentrists like Tycho Brahe. Scientists back then, more used to the smaller-sized universe proposed by Aristotle and Plato, fundamentally had trouble wrapping their heads around the actual size of the universe and the vast distances between celestial objects, and proposed a "geoheliocentric" system in which the Sun, Moon, and stars revolved around a stationary Earth, while almost everything else either revolved around the Sun or revolved around something that revolved around the Sun. This system "worked" inasmuch as it didn't contradict the observed evidence (until the parallax shifts were observed), but was criticized for being more complicated and less elegant than pure heliocentrism. Galileo adopted this critique, but tried to remain restrained in his opinions in the letter to the duchess. However, being a bullheaded and rather stubborn sort of fellow, Galileo later doubled down on heliocentrism, and ''that'' got him in trouble.

* A ''very'' famous example was given to the world in the teachings of Arius, who effectively used orthodox language to teach that Jesus was not divine, but a creature made by God. When Constantine legalized Christianity, one of the first things done by the leaders of the Church was to define and formalize what the belief system of Christianity actually held-Arius, who famously was supported by many bishops and excommunicated by others, gave an explanation of his beliefs to the Council of Nicaea in 325 and was solemnly condemned[[labelnote:*]]Legend has it that a certain [[SantaClaus St. Nicholas]] was [[SecretCharacter also present]] at the council, and became so [[BerserkButton angry at Arius' teaching]] that he ''punched the man out''. St. Nicholas is not included in the official registry of bishops present, but that only [[UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories adds to the fun]].[[/labelnote]]; the Council of Nicaea formally proclaimed the divinity of Jesus Christ. Arianism was also an issue at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, where the divinity of the Holy Spirit was also declared.\\

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Protestantism]]: You've probably heard something about [[UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation a Reformation in the 16th century]], in which thousands of Christians broke with the Catholic Church. Protestantism is not a specific doctrine or belief-set but rather an umbrella term for thousands of different theological divisions (which can generally be un-splintered into less than two dozen religious "traditions"), that share doctrines of ''Sola Scriptura'' (theology should be formed solely by consideration of scripture) and ''Sola Fide'' (human beings are justified "by faith alone")[[labelnote:*]]Centuries of poor definitions and raised tempers led this to be a major point of contention between Catholics and Protestants, who argue over what role "work" has in human entry into heaven; the assumption was that Catholic emphasis on placing "work" besides "faith" led to an overemphasis on the role of human action similar to Pelagianism, which was rejected long ago-[[NotSoDifferent it turns out that]] in the Protestant definition of "faith", the work is a natural product of and inseparable from faith, whereas Catholics refer to "faith" as something along the lines of mere intellectual belief. In short, there's really not much of a difference along those lines, as exhibited when the Catholic Church and a number of Lutheran "bishops" signed a joint declaration of faith several years ago.[[/labelnote]]. The great diversity of Protestantism has two primary roots: a general distrust for human authority and the "doctrine" of private judgment, the latter of which denies the Church its claim to the infallible right to interpret Scripture, and indeed pits the Church ''against'' Scripture.\\

* Donatism was a 4th-century heresy beginning in the wake of the Diocletianic persecution of Christians (the last official anti-Christian persecution in the Roman Empire) where many Christian clergy had apostatized or handed over holy items to the authorities as a result of coercion. After this, a dispute arose about whether the Bishop Caecilian of Carthage had been properly consecrated. His consecrators were alleged to be among those who had sinned by the acts mentioned previously during the Diocletianic persecution. Donatus Magnus ((270-355), for whom the heresy is named, led the party opposing Caecilian on this basis. They argued that if a clergy member was not in a state of grace, then any sacrament they performed was not valid. He was also consecrated as the Bishop of Carthage because of this and began to re-baptize and re-ordain allegedly lapsed clergy. Donatus was excommunicated for not only this view but due to causing a schism in the Church. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) forcefully opposed Donatism, but it persisted even after being declared a heresy. It's unknown when it ended. Later in the Protestant Reformation, some Protestants revived it, causing the Catholic Church to condemn this again with the Council of Trent.

Iconoclasm, as a political issue in the Byzantine Empire, lasted from around 726 to 843, with a hiatus from 787 to 814, and wound up - essentially - as a wrangle between Church and State over Imperial power over the Church (the Church won).[[note]]To give an idea of the ongoing effect: Centuries later, another emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, seized icons for their gold in the face of the simultaneous advance of the Turks from the east and Robert Guiscard's Normans from the west. The Church raised the specter of iconoclasm to drum up opposition to this move and seemed likely to raise an uproar. However, they didn't count on Alexios cleverly deflecting these accusations by being crassly materialistic about his grab: he said he had no problem with icons, it was just that the Emperor was empowered to do whatever was necessary--including seize holy images and other Church property--to save Christendom. He also distracted the Church establishment by accusing a prominent philosopher of heresy. Whether or not the icon seizure worked, it certainly didn't doom the nation; Alexios' reign marked the beginning of the last expansion of the Empire.[[/note]] Iconoclasm briefly reappeared in the initial stages of the Protestant Reformation mostly as a push back against the perceived decadence of the Catholics, but largely disappeared over the years, the only noticeable remnant being most Protestants' tendency to wear a bare cross instead of a Crucifix and building fairly austere and unadorned churches (until the High Church Anglicans decided to up the "High Church" part with the Oxford Movement, though they still don’t do crucifixes as much as Catholics).

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Protestantism]]: You've probably heard something about a Reformation in the 16th century, in which thousands of Christians broke with the Catholic Church. Protestantism is not a specific doctrine or belief-set but rather an umbrella term for thousands of different theological divisions (which can generally be un-splintered into less than two dozen religious "traditions"), that share doctrines of ''Sola Scriptura'' (theology should be formed solely by consideration of scripture) and ''Sola Fide'' (human beings are justified "by faith alone")[[labelnote:*]]Centuries of poor definitions and raised tempers led this to be a major point of contention between Catholics and Protestants, who argue over what role "work" has in human entry into heaven; the assumption was that Catholic emphasis on placing "work" besides "faith" led to an overemphasis on the role of human action similar to Pelagianism, which was rejected long ago-[[NotSoDifferent it turns out that]] in the Protestant definition of "faith", the work is a natural product of and inseparable from faith, whereas Catholics refer to "faith" as something along the lines of mere intellectual belief. In short, there's really not much of a difference along those lines, as exhibited when the Catholic Church and a number of Lutheran "bishops" signed a joint declaration of faith several years ago.[[/labelnote]]. The great diversity of Protestantism has two primary roots: a general distrust for human authority and the "doctrine" of private judgment, the latter of which denies the Church its claim to the infallible right to interpret Scripture, and indeed pits the Church ''against'' Scripture.\\