Started by the Jesuits?

I think it was Copernicus.

The theory pre-dates the existence of the Jesuits. Indeed, it was Aristotle who taught the sun revolved around the Earth, and other Greek philosophers, who proved less influential. thought the opposite was the case, so Heliocentrism pre-dates the existence of Christianity

Learn something new everyday! I confess to knowing little about the Greek philosophers.

Some bloke on Facebook said that the Jesuits popularized the idea in public schools through "Satanic Numbers!" He's a staunch flat earther.

It was other philosophers who proposed the heliocentric theory, but Aristotle shot them down. He pointed out that if the earth revolves around the Sun, then the orbit must be enormous (he was correct -- the orbit is over 90 million miles). We should, therefore, see parallax among the stars -- that is they should seem to change position relative to each other due to our motion. Since we don't see parallax, the heliocentric theory should be wrong.

(We see a bit of a wobble due to parallax with modern instruments. Aristotle didn't realize how FAR apart the stars are.)

There is also the fact that they were far less interested in “truth” than in ease of mathematical computation, and before the invention of modern telescopes and the ability to collect extremely precise computations, the math of the heliocentric model was much more complex than the geocentric model. They didn’t care if geocentric model was true or not only that the math was easier. Galileo’s insight was that he found a way to make the heliocentric model easier then the heliocentric one, although his critics were right that just because the math is easier doesn’t make is true. And it was Galileo’s stubborn insistence that “the fact that the math is easier proves that it is true” that got him into trouble with the Inquisition. Ironically, it was Galileo’s assumption that the planets rotate the sun in perfect circles that made it impossible for him to actually prove his theory. The solution was Kepler’s theory that the orbits are elliptical, a theory which Galileo rejected as “absurd”.