orthodoxy. The Portuguese Inquisition expanded its scope of operations from Portugal to Portugal's colonial possessions, including Brazil, Cape Verde, and Goa in India, where it continued investigating and trying cases based on supposed breaches of orthodox Roman Catholicism until 1821. Under John III, the activity of the courts was extended to the censure of books, as well as undertaking cases of divination, witchcraft, and bigamy. Originally aimed at religious matters, the Inquisition had an influence on almost every aspect of Portuguese life – political, cultural, and social. Many New Christians from Portugal migrated to Goa in the 1500s as a result of the inquisition in Portugal. They were Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Muslims, falsely-converted Jews and Muslims who were secretly practising their old religions. Both were considered a security threat to the Portuguese, because Jews had an established reputation in Iberia for joining forces with Muslims to overthrow Christian rulers. The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier requested that the Goa Inquisition be set up in a letter dated 16 May 1546 to King John III of Portugal, in order to deal with false converts to Catholicism. The Inquisition began in Goa in 1560. Of the 1,582 persons convicted between 1560 and 1623, 45.2% were convicted for offenses related to Judaism and Islam. The Goa Inquisition also turned its attention to falsely-converted and non-convert Hindus. It prosecuted non-convert Hindus who broke prohibitions against the public observance of Hindu rites, and those non-convert Hindus who interfered with sincere converts to Catholicism. A compilation of the auto-da-fé statistics of the Goa Inquisition from its beginning 1560 till its end in 1821 reveal that a total of 57 persons were burnt in the flesh and 64 in effigy (i.e. a statue resembling the person). All the burnt were convicted as relapsed heretics or for sodomy. Among the main targets of the Inquisition were also the Portuguese Christian traditions and movements that were not perceived as orthodox. The millenarian and national Feast of the Cult of the Empire of the Holy Spirit, dating from the mid 13th century, spread throughout all mainland Portugal from then into the 14th century. In the following centuries it spread throughout Portugal's Atlantic islands and empire, where it was the main target of prohibition and surveillance by the Inquisition after the 1540s, since it had almost disappeared from continental Portugal and India. This spiritual tradition, practiced exclusively by non-religious officials and popular Brotherhoods