abjure

The Latin word abiurāre came to Castilian as abjure. East verb refers to Deny, revoke, annul or renounce a thought, creed or faith that was previously defended or professed.

The subject who abjures or denies his religion is rated as renegade For the faithful of the belief that you have abandoned. Instead, adherents of a religion call convert to the one who has assumed its dogma. In this way, the same individual can be, simultaneously, renegade for one group and converted for another.

The act of abjuring a religion was very frequent in the Middle Ages, when Muslims and Christians fought to try to impose their beliefs in different territories. Today only a few minor groups attempt to force people to renounce their faith.

A example of abjuration was done by Galileo Galilei on 1633, when the Catholic Church It forced him to maintain that the planet Earth did not revolve around the sun, a fact that the Italian physicist, astronomer and mathematician maintained based on his studies.

It is important to note that the act of abjuring can go beyond religion. On 1581, several provinces of the Netherlands they signed a Act of Abjuration where they declared that they would no longer obey the king Philip II.

A person, on the other hand, you can renounce your nationality, his political ideas or his membership to any institution or group: "After abjuring the terrorist group, the young man became an important collaborator of the local government", "I will not renounce my ideology no matter how much they pressure or threaten me", "The leader, disappointed by the acts of corruption, could abjure his political party".

The Spanish Inquisition and abjuration

During the time of the Inquisition Spanish, an institution that the Catholic Monarchs founded in 1478 with the purpose of protecting the orthodoxy of Catholicism in the territories that were under their dominion, the individuals accused in the trials had to recognize the acts of heresy they had committed and be adequately repentant for it, and this was called abjuration.

This act in which a person persecuted by the Inquisition renounced their beliefs was an indispensable step for the authorities give him the opportunity to reconcile with the Catholic Church. In this context, the following three kinds of abjuration were recognized: from levi, by vehementi Y fit. Let's see a brief explanation of each one below:

* from levi: This was the class that included those individuals who had not committed acts considered very serious, such as bigamy, blasphemy and deception. In cases like these, the Church did not suspect a level of heresy important;

* by vehementi: Unlike the previous type of abjuration, this includes people who were very seriously suspected, or those who refused to offer a confession, even when there is clear evidence against him. On the other hand, abjuration was also adopted by vehementi if the defendants had only two prosecution witnesses, that is, two natural persons who issued a testimony against him;

* so: This type of abjuration is not necessarily opposite to the previous ones, but complementary, since it was applied once the accused confessed, just as it happened with the Judaizers (term that includes those who practiced ceremonies and rites of Judaism despite being Christians, whether publicly or privately, or to those who appeared to belong to said religion due to their physical features, which is why they had to face many episodes of discrimination).