The 15th century saw many changes in European society, each of which can be attributed as a contributor to the academic and political climate that allowed for the spread of the Lutheran movement. Many religious movements prior to Martin Luther had promoted ideas that he came to adopt including the Hussites, Waldensians, and followers of Girolamo Savonarola. Importantly, the conditions created by the Renaissance allowed thinkers such as Desiderius Erasmus to question the role and nature of the Church itself.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the European continent had seen vast changes in the ordering of society and culture in the last 200 years. The dramatic loss of population due to the Black Death had created new economic opportunities and mobility among the lower classes of society. New technologies came about to address labor shortages and the need to increase productivity, which in turn created new classes of society to support manufacture and trade. Hans Luther, the father of Martin Luther, was a member of this new middle class. Hans Luther made a living leasing and operating copper mines and smelters. The Luther family enjoyed enough income and social status that it was possible for Hans to envision a university education and career as a lawyer for his son.
The 14th century had also produced upheaval in the Roman Catholic Church with the resolution of the Western Schism in the early part of the century, the controversies surrounding the papacies of the Renaissance era and new pressures brought by the invasions of Christendom by the burgeoning Ottoman Empire.
Spread of literacy
The spread of books and higher education had an obvious impact on the Lutheran reformers. The Gutenberg Bible was first printed in 1455, with subsequent editions of the Bible and other books quickly becoming available in wider distribution than ever before. Along with the spread of the book, universities were becoming the centers of a new academic culture that existed outside of the immediate control of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1502, Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, founded the University of Wittenberg, a university that would house a young Augustinian friar as a "Professor of Bible" named Martin Luther.
The start of the Reformation
Cardinal Albrecht of Hohenzollern, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, was using part of the indulgence income to pay bribery debts; portrait by Albrecht Dürer, 1519The sale of indulgences shown in A Question to a Mintmaker, woodcut by Jörg Breu the Elder of Augsburg, c. 1530
On 31 October 1517, Luther wrote to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, protesting the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," which came to be known as the Ninety-five Theses. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices, and the tone of the writing is accordingly "searching, rather than doctrinaire."[3] Hillerbrand writes that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?"[3]
Luther objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel that "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs,"[4] insisting that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances.
According to Philipp Melanchthon, writing in 1546, Luther nailed a copy of the Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg that same day—church doors acting as the bulletin boards of his time—an event now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation,[5] and celebrated each year on 31 October as Reformation Day. Some scholars have questioned the accuracy of Melanchthon's account, noting that no contemporaneous evidence exists for it.[6] Others have countered that no such evidence is necessary, because this was the customary way of advertising an event on a university campus in Luther's day.[7]
The Ninety-five Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be aided by the printing press.[8] Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.
From 1510 to 1520, Luther lectured on the Psalms, the books of Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. As he studied these portions of the Bible, he came to view the use of terms such as penance and righteousness by the Roman Catholic Church in new ways. He became convinced that the church was corrupt in its ways and had lost sight of what he saw as several of the central truths of Christianity, the most important of which, for Luther, was the doctrine of justification—God's act of declaring a sinner righteous—by faith alone through God's grace. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God's grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the messiah.[9] "This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification," he wrote, "is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness".[10]
Luther came to understand justification as entirely the work of God. Against the teaching of his day that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.[11] "That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law," he wrote. "Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ."[12] Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God. He explained his concept of "justification" in the Smalcald Articles:
The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification (Romans 3:24–25). He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23–25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us... Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls (Mark 13:31).[13]
Luther's writings circulated widely, reaching France, England, and Italy as early as 1519, and students thronged to Wittenberg to hear him speak. He published a short commentary on Galatians and his Work on the Psalms. At the same time, he received deputations from Italy and from the Utraquists of Bohemia; Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen offered to place Luther under their protection.[why?][14]
Finally on 30 May 1518, when the Pope demanded an explanation, Luther wrote a summary and explanation of his theses to the Pope. While the Pope may have conceded some of the points, he did not like the challenge to his authority so he summoned Luther to Rome to answer these. At that point Frederick the Wise, the Saxon Elector, intervened. He did not want one of his subjects to be sent to Rome to be judged by the Catholic clergy so he prevailed on the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who needed Frederick's support, to arrange a compromise.
An arrangement was effected, however, whereby that summons was cancelled, and Luther went to Augsburg in October 1518 to meet the papal legate, Cardinal Thomas Cajetan. The argument was long but nothing was resolved. The Leipzig Debate took place in June and July 1519 at Pleissenburg Castle in Leipzig, Germany. Its purpose was to discuss Martin Luther's teachings, and was initiated and conducted in the presence of George, Duke of Saxony, an opponent of Luther.
On 15 June 1520, the Pope warned Luther with the papal bull (edict) Exsurge Domine that he risked excommunication unless he recanted 41 sentences drawn from his writings, including the Ninety-five Theses, within 60 days.
That autumn, Johann Eck proclaimed the bull in Meissen and other towns. Karl von Miltitz, a papal nuncio, attempted to broker a solution, but Luther, who had sent the Pope a copy of On the Freedom of a Christian in October, publicly set fire to the bull and decretals at Wittenberg on 10 December 1520,[16] an act he defended in Why the Pope and his Recent Book are Burned and Assertions Concerning All Articles.
Luther Before the Diet of Worms. Photogravure based on the painting by Anton von Werner (1843–1915)
The enforcement of the ban on the 41 sentences fell to the secular authorities. On 18 April 1521, Luther appeared as ordered before the Diet of Worms. This was a general assembly of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a town on the Rhine. It was conducted from 28 January to 25 May 1521, with Emperor Charles V presiding. Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, obtained an agreement that Luther would be promised safe passage to and from the meeting.
Johann Eck, speaking on behalf of the Empire as assistant of the Archbishop of Trier, presented Luther with copies of his writings laid out on a table, and asked him if the books were his, and whether he stood by their contents. He confirmed he was the author, but requested time to think about the answer to the second question. He prayed, consulted friends, and gave his response the next day: "Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason... I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honourable to act against conscience."[17] He is also famously said to have added: "Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen." ("Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."). This description of the declaration may be apocryphal,[18] as only the last four words appear in contemporaneous accounts.
Over the next five days, private conferences were held to determine Luther's fate. The Emperor presented the final draft of the Edict of Worms on May 25, 1521, declaring Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest: "We want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic".[19] It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. The Edict was a divisive move that distressed more moderate men, in particular Desiderius Erasmus.[citation needed]
Luther's disappearance during his return trip was planned. Frederick III, Elector of Saxony had him discreetly intercepted on his way home by masked horsemen and escorted to the security of the Wartburg Castle at Eisenach, where Luther grew a beard and lived incognito for nearly eleven months, pretending to be a knight called Junker Jörg.[20]
During his stay at Wartburg (May 1521–March 1522), which he referred to as "my Patmos",[21] Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German, and poured out doctrinal and polemical writings, including in October a renewed attack on Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, whom he shamed into halting the sale of indulgences in his episcopates,[22] and a "Refutation of the argument of Latomus," in which he expounded the principle of justification to Jacobus Latomus, a philosopher from Louvain.[23] In a letter to Melanchthon of 1 August 1521, he wrote: "[L]et your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides."[24]
The room in Wartburg where Luther translated the New Testament into German. There is an original first edition of the translation under the case on the desk.
In On the Abrogation of the Private Mass, in the summer of 1521, Luther widened his target from individual pieties like indulgences and pilgrimages to doctrines at the heart of Church practices. His essay Concerning Confession rejected the Roman Catholic Church's requirement of confession, although he affirmed the value of private confession and absolution. In the introduction to his New Testament—published in September 1522 and selling 5,000 copies in two months—he explained that good works spring from faith; they do not produce it.
In Wittenberg, Andreas Karlstadt, later supported by the ex-Augustinian Gabriel Zwilling, enacted a divisive programme of reform which exceeded anything envisaged by Luther and provoked disturbances, including a revolt by the Augustinian friars against their prior, the smashing of statues and images in churches, and denunciations of the magistracy. After secretly visiting Wittenberg in early December 1521, Luther wrote A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion; but Wittenberg became more volatile after Christmas when a band of visionary zealots, the so-called Zwickau prophets, arrived preaching the equality of man, adult baptism, Christ's imminent return, and other revolutionary doctrines.[22] Luther decided it was time to act.
Return to Wittenberg
Michael the Deacon and Martin Luther convene in Wittenberg, painted by Inès Lee and commissioned by Sir John Das (2018).
Around Christmas 1521, Anabaptists from Zwickau entered Wittenberg and caused considerable civil unrest. Thoroughly opposed to their radical views and fearful of their results, Luther secretly returned to Wittenberg on March 6, 1522. "During my absence," he wrote to the Elector, "Satan has entered my sheepfold, and committed ravages which I cannot repair by writing, but only by my personal presence and living word."[22]
For eight days in Lent, beginning on 9 March, Invocavit Sunday, and concluding the following Sunday, Luther preached eight sermons, which became known as the "Invocavit Sermons." In these sermons, he hammered home the primacy of core Christian values such as love, patience, charity, and freedom, and reminded the citizens to trust God's word rather than violence to bring about necessary change:
Do you know what the Devil thinks when he sees men use violence to propagate the gospel? He sits with folded arms behind the fire of hell, and says with malignant looks and frightful grin: "Ah, how wise these madmen are to play my game! Let them go on; I shall reap the benefit. I delight in it." But when he sees the Word running and contending alone on the battle-field, then he shudders and shakes for fear.[22]
In 1534, Michael the Deacon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church travelled to Wittenberg to meet with Martin Luther, both of whom agreed that the Lutheran Mass and that used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church were in agreement with one another.[25][26] In their discussion, Michael the Deacon also affirmed Luther's Articles of the Christian Faith as a "good creed".[27] Martin Luther saw that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church practiced elements of faith including "communion in both kind, vernacular Scriptures, and married clergy" and these practices became customary in the Lutheran Churches.[28] For Lutherans, "the Ethiopian Church conferred legitimacy on Luther’s emerging Protestant vision of a church outside the authority of the Roman Catholic papacy" as it was "an ancient church with direct ties to the apostles".[29]
Political and religious conflict
What had started as a strictly theological and academic debate had now turned into something of a social and political conflict as well, pitting Luther, his German allies and Northern European supporters against Charles V, France, the Italian Pope, their territories and other allies. The conflict would erupt into a religious war after Luther's death, fueled by the political climate of the Holy Roman Empire and strong personalities on both sides.
After the Diets of Nuremberg failed to accomplish the goal of arresting Luther, in 1526, at the First Diet of Speyer it was decided that until a General Council could meet and settle the theological issues raised by Martin Luther, the Edict of Worms would not be enforced and each Prince could decide if Lutheran teachings and worship would be allowed in his territories. In 1529, at the Second Diet of Speyer, the decision the previous Diet of Speyer was reversed—despite the strong protests of the Lutheran princes, free cities and some Zwinglian territories. These states quickly became known as Protestants. At first, this term Protestant was used politically for the states that resisted the Edict of Worms. Over time, however, this term came to be used for the religious movements that opposed the Roman Catholic tradition in the 16th century.
Lutheranism would become known as a separate movement after the 1530 Diet of Augsburg, which was convened by Charles V to try to stop the growing Protestant movement. At the Diet, Philipp Melanchthon presented a written summary of Lutheran beliefs called the Augsburg Confession. Several of the German princes (and later, kings and princes of other countries) signed the document to define "Lutheran" territories. The Roman Catholic response to it was Confutatio Augustana, also at the 1530 Diet of Augsburg. In response to the Confutatio, Philipp Melanchthon prepared the Prima delineatio. Although this was rejected by the Emperor, Melanchthon improved it as a private document until it was signed at a meeting of the Schmalkaldic League as the 1537 Apology of the Augsburg Confession, but the Catholic side did not respond to it until the 1545–63 Council of Trent.
In turn several Lutheran states led by Elector John Frederick I of Saxony and LandgravePhilip I of Hesse met at the town of Schmalkalden, where they established the Schmalkaldic League in 1531. At first, the Nuremberg Religious Peace of 1532 granted religious liberty to members of the Schmalkaldic League. During this time, Martin Luther used his political influence to prevent war, but recognized the right of rulers to defend their lands in the event of an invasion (see Luther's concept of the Beerwolf ruler).[30]
Martin Luther and the Reformation also brought a period of radical change to church architecture and design. According to the ideals of the Protestant reformation, the spoken word, the sermon, should be central act in the church service. This implied that the pulpit became the focal point of the church interior and that churches should be designed to allow all to hear and see the minister.[31][pageneeded] The focus was on the preaching of the Word, rather than a sacerdotal emphasis. Holy Communion tables became wood to emphasize that Christ's sacrifice was made once for all and were made more immediate to the congregation to emphasize man's direct access to God through Christ. Therefore, catholic churches were redecorated when they became reformed: Paintings and statues of saints were removed and sometimes the altar table was placed in front of the pulpit, as at Strasbourg Cathedral in 1524. The pews were turned towards the pulpit. The first newly built Protestant church was the court chapel of Neuburg Castle in 1543, followed by the court chapel of Hartenfels Castle in Torgau, consecrated by Martin Luther on 5 October 1544.
Luther died in 1546. In 1547, the Schmalkaldic War started out as a battle between two Lutheran rulers, but soon, Holy Roman Imperial forces joined the battle and conquered the members of the Schmalkaldic League, oppressing and exiling many Lutherans as they enforced the terms of the Augsburg Interim until religious freedom was secured for Lutherans through the Peace of Passau of 1552 and the Peace of Augsburg of 1555.[32]
However, the Lutheran movement was far from defeated. In 1577, the next generation of Lutheran theologians gathered the work of the previous generation to define the doctrine of the persisting Lutheran church. This document is known as the Formula of Concord. In 1580, it was published with the Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Large and Small Catechisms of Martin Luther, the Smalcald Articles and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. Together they were distributed in a volume entitled The Book of Concord. This doctrinal standard replaced earlier, incomplete collections of doctrine, unifying all German Lutherans with identical doctrine and beginning the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy. The Lutheran Church traditionally sees itself as the "main trunk of the historical Christian Tree" founded by Christ and the Apostles, holding that during the Reformation, the Church of Rome fell away.[33][34] As such, the Augsburg Confession teaches that "the faith as confessed by Luther and his followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that their churches represent the true catholic or universal church".[35] When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, they explained "that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the councils."[35]
The Book of Concord gave inner unity to Lutheranism, which had many controversies, mostly between Gnesio-Lutherans and Philippists, in Roman Catholic outward pressure and in alleged "crypto-Calvinistic" influence. Lutheran theology became more stable in its theoretical definitions.
Historic Pietist orphanage in Halle, Germany, a center of Pietism
Generally, the 17th century was a more difficult time than the earlier period of Reformation, due in part to the Thirty Years' War. Finland suffered a severe famine in 1696–1697 as part of what is now called the Little Ice Age, and almost one third of the population died.[37] This struggle to survive can often be seen in hymns and devotional writings.
Late Orthodoxy was torn by influences from rationalism, philosophy based on reason, and Pietism, a revival movement in Lutheranism that sought to emphasise the importance of personal devotion, morality, emotions, and the study of Scripture. After a century of vitality, the Pietist theologians Philipp Jakob Spener and August Hermann Francke warned that Lutheran orthodoxy degenerated life-changing scriptural truth into meaningless intellectualism and Formalism. Pietism increased at the expense of orthodoxy, but their emphasis on personal morality and sanctification came at the expense of teaching the doctrine of justification. The Pietisitic focus on stirring up devout emotions was susceptible to the arguments of rationalist philosophy.[38]
The last prominent orthodox Lutheran theologian before the Enlightenment and Neology was David Hollatz. A later orthodox theologian, Valentin Ernst Löscher, took part in a controversy against Pietism. Mediaeval mystical tradition continued in the works of Martin Moller, Johann Arndt and Joachim Lütkemann. Pietism became a rival of orthodoxy but adopted some orthodox devotional literature, such as those of Arndt, Christian Scriver and Stephan Prätorius, which have often been later mixed with Pietistic literature.
Into this complicated religious scene, rationalist philosophers from France and England had an enormous impact, along with the German rationalists Christian Wolff, Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant. Instead of faith in God and trust in the promises of the Bible and Christian doctrine, people were taught to trust their own reason and senses. At the most, rationalism left behind a belief in a vague supernaturalism. Morality and church-going plummeted together.[38]
Genuine piety was found almost solely in small Pietist gatherings. However, some of the laity preserved Lutheran orthodoxy from both Pietism and rationalism through reusing old catechisms, hymnbooks, postils, and devotional writings, including those written by Johann Gerhard, Heinrich Müller, and Christian Scriver.[39] Aside from that, however, Lutheranism vanished in the wake of rationalist philosophy.[38]
Revivals
The Awakening
Napoleon's invasion of Germany promoted rationalism and angered German Lutherans, stirring up a desire among the people to preserve Luther's theology from the rationalist threat. This Erweckung, or Awakening, argued that reason was insufficient and pointed out the importance of emotional religious experience. Small groups sprang up, often in universities, which devoted themselves to Bible study, reading devotional writings, and revival meetings.[40] Members of this movement eventually took to restoring the traditional liturgy and doctrine of the Lutheran church in the Neo-Lutheran movement. A layman, Luther scholar Johann Georg Hamann, became famous for countering rationalism and advancing the Awakening.[41]
Despite political meddling in church life, local leaders sought to restore and renew Christianity. High school teacher August Friedrich Christian Vilmar turned from rationalism to faith, and in doing so, realized the importance of the unaltered Augsburg Confession and the other Lutheran Confessions of faith. An advocate of the Neo-Lutheran movement (which was allied with the Old Lutherans against rationalism), he worked to renew the church through the use of the Lutheran Confessions.[41] Neo-Lutheran Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe and Old Lutheran free church leader Friedrich August Brünn[45] both sent young men overseas to serve as Pastors to German Americans, while the Inner Mission focused on renewing the situation home.[46]Johann Gottfried Herder, superintendent at Weimar and part of the Inner Mission movement, joined with the Romantic movement with his quest to preserve human emotion and experience from rationalism.[47]
The Neo-Lutheran movement managed to slow secularism and counter atheistic Marxist socialism, but it did not fully succeed in Europe.[46] It partly succeeded in continuing the Pietist movement's drive to right social wrongs and focus on individual conversion. The Neo-Lutheran call to renewal failed to achieve widespread popular acceptance because it was rooted in a lofty, idealistic Romanticism that did not connect with an increasingly industrialized and secularized Europe.[48] At best, the work of local leaders resulted in specific areas with vibrant spiritual renewal, but people in Lutheran areas overall continued to become increasingly distant from church life.[46] Beginning in 1867, confessional and liberal minded German Lutherans joined to form the Common Evangelical Lutheran Conference against the ever looming prospect of a legally binding union with the Reformed.[49] However, they failed to reach a consensus among themselves on how much agreement in doctrine is necessary for church union.[46] Eventually, the fascistGerman Christians movement forced the final national merger of Lutherans and Reformed into a single Reich Church, the German Protestant Church in 1933. After World War II, the German Protestant Church was re-founded with the new name Protestant Church in Germany.
Philip Melanchthon was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and influential designer of educational systems.
Johann Maier von Eck, often anglicized as John Eck, was a German Catholic theologian, scholastic, prelate, and a pioneer of the counter-reformation who was among Martin Luther's most important interlocutors and theological opponents.
The Ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences is a list of propositions for an academic disputation written in 1517 by Martin Luther, then a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany. The Theses is retrospectively considered to have launched the Protestant Reformation and the birth of Protestantism, despite various proto-Protestant groups having existed previously. It detailed Luther's opposition to what he saw as the Roman Catholic Church's abuse and corruption by Catholic clergy, who were selling plenary indulgences, which were certificates supposed to reduce the temporal punishment in purgatory for sins committed by the purchasers or their loved ones.
Frederick III, also known as Frederick the Wise, was Elector of Saxony from 1486 to 1525, who is mostly remembered for the worldly protection of his subject Martin Luther.
Reformation Day is a Protestant Christian religious holiday celebrated on 31 October in remembrance of the onset of the Reformation.
Crypto-Calvinism is a pejorative term describing a segment of those members of the Lutheran Church in Germany who were accused of secretly subscribing to Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist in the decades immediately after the death of Martin Luther in 1546. It denotes what was seen as a hidden Calvinist belief, i.e., the doctrines of John Calvin, by members of the Lutheran Church. The term crypto-Calvinist in Lutheranism was preceded by terms Zwinglian and Sacramentarian. Also, Jansenism has been accused of crypto-Calvinism by Roman Catholics.
The Book of Concord (1580) or Concordia is the historic doctrinal standard of the Lutheran Church, consisting of ten credal documents recognized as authoritative in Lutheranism since the 16th century. They are also known as the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The Augsburg Interim was an imperial decree ordered on 15 May 1548 at the 1548 Diet of Augsburg by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who had just defeated the forces of the Protestant Schmalkaldic League in the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47. Although it ordered Protestants to readopt traditional Catholic beliefs and practices, including the seven Sacraments, it allowed for Protestant clergymen the right to marry and for the laity to receive communion in both kinds. It is considered the first significant step in the process leading to the political and religious legitimization of Protestantism as a valid alternative Christian creed to Roman Catholicism finally realized in the 1552 Peace of Passau and the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. The Interim became Imperial law on 30 June 1548. The Pope advised all bishops to abide by the concessions made to the Protestants in the Interim in August 1549.
Protestantism originated from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The term Protestant comes from the Protestation at Speyer in 1529, where the nobility protested against enforcement of the Edict of Worms which subjected advocates of Lutheranism to forfeit of all their property. However, the theological underpinnings go back much further, as Protestant theologians of the time cited both Church Fathers and the Apostles to justify their choices and formulations. The earliest origin of Protestantism is controversial; with some Protestants today claiming origin back to people in the early church deemed heretical such as Jovinian and Vigilantius.
The term Evangelical Catholic is used in Lutheranism, alongside the terms Augsburg Catholic or Augustana Catholic, with those calling themselves Evangelical Catholic Lutherans or Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship stressing the catholicity of historic Lutheranism in liturgy, beliefs, practices, and doctrines. Evangelical Catholics teach that Lutheranism at its core "is deeply and fundamentally catholic". The majority of Evangelical Catholic Lutheran clergy and parishes are members of mainstream Lutheran denominations.
The Philippists formed a party in early Lutheranism. Their opponents were called Gnesio-Lutherans.
Martin Luther was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar. He was the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs form the basis of Lutheranism.
Martin Luther is a 1953 American–West German film biography of Martin Luther. It was directed by Irving Pichel,, and stars Niall MacGinnis as Luther. It was produced by Louis de Rochemont and RD-DR Corporation in collaboration with Lutheran Church Productions and Luther-Film-G.M.B.H.
All Saints' Church, commonly referred to as Schlosskirche to distinguish it from the Stadtkirche of St. Mary's, sometimes known as the Reformation Memorial Church, is a Lutheran church in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the site where, according to Philip Melanchthon, the Ninety-five Theses were posted by Martin Luther in 1517, launching the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Lutheran Mariology or Lutheran Marian theology is derived from Martin Luther's views of Mary, the mother of Jesus and these positions have influenced those taught by the Lutheran Churches. Lutheran Mariology developed out of the deep Christian Marian devotion on which Luther was reared, and it was subsequently clarified as part of his mature Christocentric theology and piety. Lutherans hold Mary in high esteem, universally teaching the dogmas of the Theotokos and the Virgin Birth. Luther dogmatically asserted what he considered firmly established biblical doctrines such as the divine motherhood of Mary while adhering to pious opinions of the Immaculate Conception and the perpetual virginity of Mary, along with the caveat that all doctrine and piety should exalt and not diminish the person and work of Jesus Christ. By the end of Luther's theological development, his emphasis was always placed on Mary as merely a receiver of God's love and favour. His opposition to regarding Mary as a mediatrix of intercession or redemption was part of his greater and more extensive opposition to the belief that the merits of the saints could be added to those of Jesus Christ to save humanity. Lutheran denominations may differ in their teaching with respect to various Marian doctrines and have contributed to producing ecumenical meetings and documents on Mary.
Eric W. Gritsch was an American Lutheran ecumenical theologian and Luther scholar.
In 16th-century Christianity, Protestantism came to the forefront and marked a significant change in the Christian world.
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation.
The Augsburg Confession, also known as the Augustan Confession or the Augustana from its Latin name, Confessio Augustana, is the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church and one of the most important documents of the Protestant Reformation. The Augsburg Confession was written in both German and Latin and was presented by a number of German rulers and free-cities at the Diet of Augsburg on 25 June 1530.
John, known as John the Steadfast or John the Constant, was Elector of Saxony from 1525 until 1532 from the House of Wettin.
↑ "Johann Tetzel," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007: "Tetzel's experiences as a preacher of indulgences, especially between 1503 and 1510, led to his appointment as general commissioner by Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz, who, deeply in debt to pay for a large accumulation of benefices, had to contribute a considerable sum toward the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Albrecht obtained permission from Pope Leo X to conduct the sale of a special plenary indulgence (i.e., remission of the temporal punishment of sin), half of the proceeds of which Albrecht was to claim to pay the fees of his benefices. In effect, Tetzel became a salesman whose product was to cause a scandal in Germany that evolved into the greatest crisis (the Reformation) in the history of the Western church."
1 2 Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther: Indulgences and salvation," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.
↑ Bainton, Roland. Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther. New York: Penguin, 1995, 60; Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. tr. James L. Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–93, 1:182; Kittelson, James. Luther The Reformer. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishing House, 1986, 104.
↑ Iserloh, Erwin. The Theses Were Not Posted. Toronto: Saunders of Toronto, Ltd., 1966.
↑ Junghans, Helmer. "Luther's Wittenberg," in McKim, Donald K. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 26.
↑ Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. tr. James L. Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–93, 1:204–05.
↑ Wriedt, Markus. "Luther's Theology," in The Cambridge Companion to Luther. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 88–94.
↑ Luther, Martin. "The Smalcald Articles," in Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005, 289, Part two, Article 1.
↑ Macauley Jackson, Samuel and Gilmore, George William. (eds.) "Martin Luther", The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, New York, London, Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1908–1914; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1951), 71.
↑ Spitz, Lewis W. The Renaissance and Reformation Movements, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1987, 338.
↑ Brecht, Martin. (tr. Wolfgang Katenz) "Luther, Martin," in Hillerbrand, Hans J. (ed.) Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 2:463.
↑ Macauley Jackson, Samuel and Gilmore, George William. (eds.) "Martin Luther", The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, New York, London, Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1908–1914; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1951, 72.
↑ Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther: Diet of Worms," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.
↑ Bratcher, Dennis. "The Edict of Worms (1521)," in The Voice: Biblical and Theological Resources for Growing Christians. Retrieved 13 July 2007.
↑ Schaff-Herzog, "Luther, Martin," 72; Geoffrey Elton, Reformation Europe: 1517–1559, London: Fontana, 1963, p. 53; Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700, London: Allen Lane, 2003, p. 132.
↑ Luther, Martin. "Letter 82," in Luther's Works. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann (eds), Vol. 48: Letters I, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1963, 48:246. John, author of Revelation, had been exiled on the island of Patmos.
↑ Daniels, David D. (2 November 2017). "Martin Luther and Ethiopian Christianity: Historical Traces". University of Chicago. Retrieved 9 April 2018. In that year Luther welcomed a new voice into his ecumenical dialogue: Michael the Deacon, an Ethiopian cleric. Recalling his dialogue with Michael, Luther stated: "We have also learned from him, that the rite which we observe in the use of administration of the Lord's Supper and the Mass, agrees with the Eastern Church." Luther expressed his approval of the Church of Ethiopia along with his embrace of Deacon Michael in a letter dated July 4, 1534: "For this reason we ask that good people would demonstrate Christian love also to this [Ethiopian] visitor." According to Luther, Michael responded positively to his articles of the Christian faith, proclaiming: "This is a good creed, that is, faith" (see Martin Luther, Table-Talk, November 17, 1538 [WA, TR 4:152–53, no. 4126]).
↑ Luther Digest: An Annual Abridgment of Luther Studies, Volumes 2-4. Luther Academy. 1994. p.146. During the summer of 1534, an Ethiopian monk Deacon Michael visited Wittenberg. With great satisfaction Luther recorded that among the Christians in Ethiopia neither the private Mass nor the Mass canon was known, and their order of service generally corresponded to that of evangelical congregations of Germany (WA Tr 5:450, #6045).
↑ Junius Benjamin Remensnyder (1893). The Lutheran Manual. Boschen & Wefer Company. p.12.
↑ Frey, H. (1918). Is One Church as Good as Another?. Vol.37. The Lutheran Witness. pp.82–83.
1 2 Ludwig, Alan (12 September 2016). "Luther's Catholic Reformation". The Lutheran Witness. When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession before Emperor Charles V in 1530, they carefully showed that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the councils and even the canon law of the Church of Rome. They boldly claim, "This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers" (AC XXI Conclusion 1). The underlying thesis of the Augsburg Confession is that the faith as confessed by Luther and his followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that their churches represent the true catholic or universal church. In fact, it is actually the Church of Rome that has departed from the ancient faith and practice of the catholic church (see AC XXIII 13, XXVIII 72 and other places).
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