Protestant Reformation — Luther's 95 Theses
Martin Luther objected to the sale of indulgences in 1517 and split western Christianity permanently. He was a professor of theology at Wittenberg, an Augustinian friar of an anxious and scrupulous temperament, who had arrived through years of struggle at the conviction that salvation is given rather than earned — that a person is justified by faith and not by works. The indulgence campaign then running in Germany was raising money for the rebuilding of St Peter's and for the debts of a young archbishop who had bought his see, and its salesmen were promising remission for the dead. The ninety-five theses were an academic proposition for debate, written in Latin, and the nailing to the door of the castle church is probably a later embellishment. They were translated, printed and distributed across Germany within weeks, which is the fact that made this reformation different from the earlier ones — Hus and Wycliffe had no press. Luther was excommunicated in 1521, refused to recant at the Diet of Worms, and was hidden by his prince for a year, in which he translated the New Testament into German. The movement then divided as fast as it spread: Zwingli at Zurich, the Anabaptists, the peasants who rose in 1524 and whom Luther denounced with great violence, and Calvin at Geneva a generation later. The wars that followed ran for 130 years. The date of 31 October is now a public holiday in several German states and a Protestant commemoration everywhere. Luther's own object was the reform of one church rather than the creation of several, and he was appalled by most of what the movement produced within his own lifetime.
- Year: 1517 CE
- Category: Cultural
