The Inquisition, as an institution of the church, dates the beginning of its activity from 1215. The then Pope Innocent III, who approved the basic rights and obligations of the inquisitors, is most directly related to the creation of a special court for the Catholic Church. It is worth saying that the identification and persecution of the so-called "heretics" began almost from the first years of the emergence of the Christian religion and continues to this day, of course, not in such a sophisticated and radical form as in the Middle Ages. The early Christian church was forced to wage a desperate struggle not only with external opponents (mainly in the person of the Roman emperors), but also with internal contradictions. Endless disputes between representatives of the highest Christian clergy about the degree of holiness of certain texts, as well as disagreements in their interpretation, led, in the end,to the creation of a certain unified set of rules concerning clergy. Based on the apostolic teachings of St. Paul and the revelations of John the Theologian, the bishops brought out the doctrine of the "true faith" common to all Christians, declaring all who did not adhere to its canons as heretics and "lost."
At the dawn of Christianity, the maximum punishment for an apostate was excommunication. The first case of the rejection of the property of a heretic in favor of the clergy was recorded in 316. A few decades later, in 385, the first death sentence was carried out on charges of heresy. The Christian writer and philosopher Priscillian was executed along with several followers of his doctrine. They were all burned at the stake; it will not be superfluous to note that Priscillian preached asceticism, which did not prevent the zealots of the "true faith" from putting him to painful death.
Beginning in the eleventh century, the persecution and destruction of heretics began to acquire a mass character. During the time of the famous Frederick Barbarossa (from 1120 to 1190), a system for detecting crimes against religion was developed and introduced. According to her, those convicted of inappropriate behavior in relation to the church were subject to the church court. At the same time, denunciation was widely used and encouraged, especially when it came to wealthy citizens, whose property invariably ended up in the church treasury. Finally, in 1229, Pope Gregory the Ninth founds a true church tribunal, whose purpose is designated "to identify, prevent and punish heresies." Subsequently, in 1478, this judicial body was transformed into the so-called "Spanish Inquisition", one of the most radical and savage forms of religious obscurantism.
Contrary to popular belief, the inquisitors themselves practically never took part directly in the executions of those accused of hereticalism. Their task was, basically, to determine the guilt or innocence of a particular suspect. The accused, in the overwhelming majority of cases, were subjected to sophisticated torture, trying to snatch confessions of heretical pursuits and beliefs. In the event that a "heretic" did not die during torture, confessed to crimes against the church and repented of them, the church punishment (penance) was imposed on him. If the accused persisted in denying his guilt or agreed with only one point of the accusation, rejecting others, he was recognized as a "stubborn heretic" and handed over to the secular court. Thus,the inquisitors disclaimed responsibility for the further fate of the hand that fell to them and, formally, did not demand his condemnation. However, this legal procedure was accompanied by a desire for the secular authorities to "punish according to merit", which deprived the accused of any hope of leniency.
The Inquisition played its part in the famous "witch hunt" that began at the end of the fifteenth century. In those days, a wave of hysteria swept across Europe, associated with rumors of the massive presence of "servants of the devil" and "made an agreement with Lucifer" among the common population. In fairness, it must be said that although the Inquisition was engaged in identifying witches, most death sentences were passed without her participation, by secular courts.
The inquisitors did not allow conviction without trial, but, at the same time, almost never acquitted. A person accused of heresy was a priori guilty, especially if his property was of value to the churchmen. For this reason, the Holy Spanish Inquisition raged especially in the wealthy regions of Europe, ravaging and condemning the fire of wealthy townspeople, farmers and merchants, accusing them of blasphemy and worship of evil spirits. At the same time, oral testimony of “witnesses” was sufficient to bring charges, and they were offered a small reward for the denunciation, taken from the confiscated property of the accused.
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According to inaccurate data, the number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition for the entire period of its activity exceeds three hundred and forty thousand people, of which about thirty-two thousand were burned alive. More than seventeen thousand were burned after strangulation, the rest were subjected to torture, imprisonment and other punishments. Gradually, the institution of the Inquisition was destroyed in almost all European countries, including Spain (in 1834) and Portugal (in 1820), where its influence was especially strong. The organization with this name existed for the longest time in Rome, only in 1908 the name of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacred Chancery was renamed.