In 15th century Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was very powerful and accumulated a lot of wealth. Its methods of accumulating money are often criticized, so there are more and more dissidents. For example, the British theologian John Wycliffe (his followers are called the Rollardists) once wrote an article criticizing the pope's corruption. After his death, he was convicted of a heresy. 44 years after his death, his bones were excavated and burned and thrown into the river.
After a century, Martin Luther published "The Ninety-Five Theses", criticizing the church's dogmas and practices and questioning the authority of the Pope. The Pope refused to discuss the "Thesis" and finally expelled Martin Luther from the church. As a result, it triggered religious reforms, caused a series of religious wars and the second major division of the Christian church, and also caused the Pope to lose his control over half of Europe.
Martin Luther was born in Germany in 1483 and was baptized by Catholicism on the second day of his birth. His father attached great importance to Martin Luther's education and sent him to many schools to learn Latin, rhetoric, logic, etc., hoping that he could become a lawyer in the future. Therefore, after obtaining a degree and a master's degree at Erfurt University, Martin Luther entered the law school for further studies. Here, he fell in love with philosophy, and later became interested in theology. The young Martin Luther believed that the knowledge of God can only be obtained through divine revelation, not through logic, philosophy or reasoning. So he soon left the university and entered the Augustinian Order as a monk (which made his father very disappointed). He devoted himself to scripture study, prayer, fasting and confession, and became more and more restrained.
Later, the abbot recommended him to teach. After he was promoted to priest in 1507, he came to Wittenberg University to teach theology the following year. In Wittenberg, Martin Luther continued to study the "Bible" with great concentration and obtained his doctorate in 1512. As he deepened his study of the scriptures, he began to question many dogmas and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the church’s own organizational structure and operating methods, thinking that even if they were not evil, they were at least in line with those in the Bible. The doctrine violates.
Among them, the most criticized one is the indulgences sold by the church.
The Catholic Church invented indulgences in the 11th century, which completely or partially exempted the purchaser from temporary punishment (Christ’s punishment includes eternal punishment and temporary punishment). The basis for the church to do this is that the church is responsible for the storage of the merits and deeds of Christ and the saints, and can use its "stock" to issue indulgences to offset the punishment that the purchaser should suffer. Over the centuries, the practice of indulgences has become more and more common, and more and more abuses have appeared, and have gradually reduced to the pope (most of the income goes to the pope) and the local church (from which part of the income) is used to search for money. In fact, the original intention of indulgences is neither to write off the crimes of the dead, nor to exempt them from the punishment they deserve, but they are distorted and misused by the church. This incident eventually detonated Luther's dissatisfaction with the crime coupon.
In 1516, Pope Leo X sent John Teicher to Germany to sell indulgences for the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral. Luther totally disagrees with the practice of selling indulgences (questioning how the Pope, as the richest person in the world, can exploit the poor for his own projects), and specifically targeted the selling points promoted by Taicher (declaring "buy an indulgence Vouchers can get a dead person out of purgatory") questioned. Luther also fundamentally criticized the legality of indulgences. He believes that the reduction and exemption of post-death punishment should be God's unique power, how can the church have the right to sell it? He also believes that God freely gives its followers, not a reward for good deeds.
is different from the previous reforms' attacks on indulgences. This time Luther attacked it from a theological perspective. At the end of October 1517, Luther wrote all his critical views in the form of an outline as "Martin Luther's Debate on the Effectiveness of Indulgences" and sent it to Bishop Albrecht of Magdeburg and Mainz. (It is also said in history that Luther nailed this article, the "Ninety-five Theses" to the door of the Wiedenburg Cathedral, but there is little evidence to prove this.)
Bishop Albrecht did not Accept Luther’s criticism in good faith, because he invited Teicher to Germany to sell indulgences, and he can also get a share of it and use this ill-gotten wealth to bribe the Pope in exchange for the bishop who is in charge of both dioceses. status. Therefore, Bishop Albrecht did not openly communicate withLuther debated, but sent this document to the Pope who Luther criticized the most. In the following years, Pope Leo X recruited many theologians to refute Luther’s views, and also Luther’s The viewpoint is classified as heresy, and he tried every means to make Luther give up his claim. However, under the pressure of the pope, Luther proclaimed his views more clearly, refused to recognize the theocratic power of the pope, and continued to write articles criticizing the church.
In 1520, the Pope issued an encyclical in Wittenberg threatening to expel Luther from the church unless he abandons the "Ninety-five Principles." In response, Luther burned the Pope's encyclical in public. In early January 1521, Luther was formally expelled from teaching. Later he was called to attend the Worms Conference, where he still insisted on defending his position, and also used this opportunity to further expose the mistakes made by the Pope and the Church. After the meeting, Luther's book was banned, and he himself was classified as a heresy and wanted. The Holy Roman Church at the time thought that this would be enough to end the matter. However, they were very wrong. The influence of
, a rising star in theology, has not been greatly affected by this. In 1518, a friend and supporter of Luther translated the Ninety-Five Theses from Latin into German. Thanks to the latest printing technology at the time, the "Thesis" spread throughout Germany in a few weeks, and in Europe within a year, and received widespread public response. Other reformers also supported Luther. However, their different understandings of the doctrine gradually emerged, and gradually formed several different Protestant factions (swear against religion), and there are usually some people who want to get rid of them. National rulers or institutions influenced by the Pope’s politics support.
These sects include Lutheranism in Germany and Scandinavia, the Calvinist sects of Switzerland and France, as well as some more radical sects. Although the Roman Catholic Church vigorously launched the anti-reformation movement and successfully implemented it in Spain and Italy, by the mid-17th century, Protestantism had dominated the northern and eastern parts of Europe, and it symbolized the end of the Thirty Years' War. "The Peace of Westphalia" also allows European countries to choose one of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism as their state religion.
No matter from theological point of view or the point of view of organizational structure, Protestantism is another complete division of the Catholic Church. Protestantism does not recognize the Catholic Church as the only orthodox church, and believes that different denominations of Christianity should freely choose their own creeds. The birth of Protestantism also means that the absolute authority of the Pope in Europe is gone forever. Pope Innocent X declared the "Peace of Westphalia" invalid, and even called it abominable and stupid, but these actions have been useless.
