heresy trial
Doctrinal prosecution hearing
A heresy trial is a formal proceeding to determine whether someone holds beliefs that contradict official religious doctrine.
Historically associated with the Catholic Church's Inquisition, such trials could result in excommunication, imprisonment, or execution.
The term now applies figuratively to any institutional process for punishing ideological dissent: The faculty meeting turned into a heresy trial over his views on curriculum.
- inquisitionSustained, probing investigation
- excommunicationFormal barring from sacraments
- persecutionSystematic mistreatment of groups
- witch huntPersecuting supposed wrongdoers
- tribunalJudicial decision-making body
Council of Constance · sworn testimony · orthodoxy · church authority · martyrdom · burning at stake · blasphemy · canon law · auto-da-fé · censorship · book burning · recantation · doctrine · dogma · sentencing · guilty verdict · apostasy · anathema
- Church Conflictsschism, Great Schism, church split, Investiture Controversy, Protestant Reformation
- Galileotelescope, heliocentrism, house arrest, astronomy, sunspots
- Inquisitioninquisition, heretic, inquisitors, heretics, auto-da-fe
- medieval justiceordeal, inquisition, execution, torture, pillory
- religious trialsinquisition, religious court, Spanish Inquisition, Roman Inquisition, Salem witch trials
- church lawcanon law, church court, papal bull, papal bulls, papal decree
heresy trialcivil court
Forum for private disputes
civil trial · criminal trial · state court · criminal prosecution · civil litigation
heresy trialcanonization
Official declaration of sainthood
beatification · sainthood · acquittal · exoneration · vindication