Protestant Reformation

Luther's 95 Theses

The Protestant Reformation is a term used by people to describe a series of events that happened in the 16th century in the Christian Church. Some people saw a need to change the way the Catholic church worked. The central points of criticism were the following:

• The church sold tickets of indulgences (forgiveness) from sins for money. This suggested that the rich could buy their way into Heaven while the poor could not - quite the opposite of what the Bible says. (See Gospel of Matthew 19:24)
• Most people did not understand the sermon, because it was in Latin. The sermon is that part of the service where the priests teaches people things from the Bible. Different priests told different things. Some of those things had little to do with what was written in the Bible (The Holy Book of Christianity). Ordinary people did not know very much about Christianity.

People like Erasmus, Thomas More, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther and John Calvin saw this, and acted against it. This led to a split of the church, into Catholics and a number of Protestant churches.

Martin Luther was the first person to translate the Bible into German. He could even print some copies, because Johannes Gutenberg had invented a way to print a small number of copies (approximately 50-100) at a relatively low price. The Protestant reformation triggered the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

In general, Martin Luther's posting of the 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg is seen as the start of the Protestant Reformation. This happened in the year 1517. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 recognised Protestants, and is generally seen as the end of this process.

The causes

In the beginning of XVI century, many events that prepared the protestant reformation. People had the willpower to change the Catholic Church of the clergy abuse. Indeed, the monk cupidity and the scandalous life of Rome had created a hole between the population and the clergy. Furthermore, the clergy didn’t respond to the population needs because there were ignorant, most of them didn’t understand Latin or they didn’t live in their diocese. The papacy prestige depreciated. Which helped the protestant beliefs spread, it was the printing advent. In 1515, the pope decided the beginning an indulgence campaign to pick up money for the built of St. Peter's Basilica. But, Martin Luther didn’t agree with him and October 31, 1517, he putted the 95 theses on the Wittenberg chapel for protest. Luther, who appeared as an enemy of the pope, was excommunicate. In the beginning, Luther had not planned to separate from the Catholic Church or to create a new one; he wanted to reform the Catholic Church.

The consequences

In 1524-1525, millions of peasants rebelled against the nobles in the name of equality of the humanity in front at God. A lot of countries in Europe followed the trend of protestant reformation and Europe was divided by denomination and it created religion wars. For a short period of time, protestant and catholic had managed to live with one another and with the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 . This Peace recognized the confessional division of the German states and gave the right to the protestant to practice their religion. Furthermore, the papacy reestablished the inquisition to combat heresies. The Catholic Church responded to the protestant reformation with the counter-reformation. In the beginning, he replied by force but he quickly realized that this was useless. So he created a lot of new religious orders like Jesuit. These new religious orders were charged to combat protestant while educating the population to Catholicism. The pope institutes the Index that was a catalog that he published books and texts that they were forbidden by the Catholic Church. This Index had a lot of influence and was maintained until the 1960s. The Catholic Church used the baroque art to touch the religious feeling of the faithful and bring them to the Catholic religion.

The impact

The protestant reformation had an impact on today's Occident society. The protestant denominations have multiplied in different forms. They have a lot of influence in the United States and the English Canada. England tried to convert the province of Quebec to the protestant religion when they conquered Canada. They didn't succeed, but now, in 2013, many protestant churches were established in the province of Quebec in despite of England's failure to do so.

Sources

• LAVILLE, Christian, SIMARD, Marc. Histoire de la civilisation occidentale, Ville Saint-Laurent, Erpi, 3e edition, 2010, p. 175 to 191
• http://www.history.com/topics/reformation
• http://www.phi2080.uqam.ca/node/66