The beginnings of Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther

Historians have ascribed the inception of Protestant Reformation to the German Augustinian friar Martin Luther (1483-1546), who acknowledged the prior influence of John Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384. In the early 16th century, Luther denounced several “abuses” of the Church, of which the sale of indulgences was the most emblematic. Though occasioned by these abuses, Reformation was driven by the new revelation that salvation could not be “earned” or “mediated”, but was a gift, free and total, that came through faith alone in the Christ. At the outset, the contention was primarily theological; but the list of ninety five theses that Martin Luther wrote in 1517 set fire to the powder, and Protestants have memorialized October 31, 1517 (when he was said to have posted his theses) as the day Reformation began. Failed attempts at conciliation led to Luther’s excommunication by Pope Leo X (r. 1513-1521) in January 1521 and his banishment by the young Charles V (r. 1519-1558) of the Holy Roman Empire. The endorsement of German princes, namely the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise (r. 1486-1525) allowed him to find shelter, disseminate his ideas, and begin his vernacular translation of the Bible. Through his writings, Luther developed his reformist revelation, called for a new relationship between man and God, and introduced a theological alternative to traditional doctrines. This theology was articulated around the affirmation of three principles that laid the doctrinal foundations of much of Protestantism, till the present: (1) universal priesthood, whereby the distinction between clergy and laity [(i.e., the spiritual and the secular)] is removed, the clergy is no longer a sacred class, and Protestant ministers do not receive the sacrament of holy orders (see Module “Themes”, page 9); (2) Scripture as the sole rule of faith over Tradition, removing any monopoly over the interpretation of writings; and (3) justification (God declaring a sinner righteous) by faith alone, and imputed solely by God. These three principles had important implications for the organization of Protestant societies, their religious life and the way they conceived their relationship to God. Specifically, Luther recognized only two sacraments (baptism, and the Eucharist), rejecting the other five which he did not find instated by Jesus in the Gospel. In the 1520s, a church in breach of the papacy was gradually consolidated, even if contemporaries did not realize it. At the Diet of Augsburg of 1530, Philip Melanchthon, a collaborator of Luther, laid before it the Augsburg Confession. The text was rejected by the Catholic majority of the Diet, and hostilities ensued within the Holy Roman Empire, which the Peace of Augsburg ended in 1555 through the cujus regio, ejus religio (as prince, as religion) compromise. Following revisions, the text was adopted by the various Lutheran churches in 1580, thus becoming the profession of faith of Lutherans. The word "Protestant", which came to designate the reformers, was termed after a group of prince-electors [and free-city legates] who, siding with Luther’s reform at the Diet of Speyer in 1529, had protested against the ruling made in the name of Charles V that denied the States the right to choose their faith. Elsewhere, Lutheran Reformation spread rapidly in northern Europe, [becoming state church in Denmark and Sweden in 1536, with Denmark extending it to Norway (1538) and Iceland (1539).

Reformation’s expansion and other reformers

Other reformers, while separately endorsing Luther, were at the origin of several Reformed churches, such as the Swiss priest Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) in the canton of Zurich, and later, the French humanist Jean Calvin (1509-1564) in Geneva, who reorganized relations between the Church and the magistrates, and prescribed austerity and the regeneration of faith through the accomplishment of works. The Geneva model spread to the Netherlands and Scotland, as well as France. Whereas in the German states of the Holy Roman Empire a compromise was reached with the Peace of Augsburg, the spread of Calvinism provoked repeated religious wars in France. Peace was restored when Henri IV (r. 1589-1610) issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which rehabilitated Protestants while restricting their freedom of worship within specified areas – this until Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) revoked the Edict in 1685 in his bid to unify French society under his exclusive control. In England, Luther’s ideas took hold amid growing criticism of the papacy and rising tension between Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-1534) and King Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547), who sought to have his marriage with Catherine of Aragon annulled. With the annulment not forthcoming, in part due to Charles V’s control of the papacy, the first Act of Supremacy was passed in 1534, which established Henry as “Supreme Head of the Church of England”. The nascent Church of England was later consolidated and unified under Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), who sought to settle divisions by including Reform doctrines within an ecclesiastical framework similar to the Catholic Church.

Radical Reformation

Considering that the reforms did not more comprehensively challenge the established order, some reformers sought to go further by bringing their contentions not only on religious grounds, but also socially and politically. Their reforms taken together were labelled “radical” by scholars; they represented a certain religious and political modernity, to the extent that they favored a strict separation of church and state, with the church [solely representing] a voluntary assembly of believers.

Catholic Reformation

In reaction to the reforms which were creating a schism in Western Christianity, the Roman Church responded, on one hand, by countering the spread of reform ideas, namely through the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), founded by Ignatius Loyola in the years 1534-40, and on the other, by convening the Council at Trent between 1545 and 1563. The Council, whose decrees may be considered the act of birth of Catholicism, reaffirmed the Catholic doctrine: Scripture and Tradition were both validated as sources of faith; the seven sacraments were reaffirmed, together with transubstantiation and cooperation with God through works; Marian worship was legitimized; the distinction between clergy and laity was reasserted, as well as the importance of images; the Vulgate by Jerome was officially recognized as the Church’s Latin Bible.
By the close of the 16th century, Western Europe had divided itself, as did Western Christianity, between a Catholic Church and several Protestant Churches (primarily Lutheran and Calvinist or “Reformed”). This marked the advent of the modern age in Western Europe.