But this...THIS is fascinating;
On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar, martin Luther, approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.
In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption
of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment –
called “indulgences” – for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican
priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pop Leo
X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the
renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the
Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members
traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had
bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.
Luther’s frustration with this practice led him to write the
95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated
from Latin into German and distributed widely. A Copy made its way to Rome, and
efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent,
however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the
Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings
before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms, declaring Luther an outlaw and a
heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence.
Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of
the Bible, a t ask that took 10 years to complete.
The term “Protestant” first appeared in 1529, when Charles V
revoked a provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose
whether they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of prices and other
supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance to God trumped
their allegiance to the emperor. They became know to their opponents as
Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all who believed the Church
should be reformed, even those outside Germany. By the time Luther died, of
natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary beliefs had formed the basis for the
Protestant Reformation, which would over the next three centuries revolutionize
Western civilization.
No comments:
Post a Comment