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Martin Luther was born in 1483 in the Holy Roman Empire, in present-day Germany, in Eisleben, Saxony. Until 1517, he was not a well-known scholar or monk, but daring to criticize the practice of selling indulgences for forgiveness in the Roman Catholic Church, he became popular. In his 95 theses, Martin Luther wrote that Scripture has the highest power, and that faith alone is sufficient to save people, good works are not necessary.
Admittedly, some of the reformer’s ideas were not new, but the effect they had on the show that the need for religious reform was extremely mature at the time, History.com writes. The Catholic Church was divided, and Martin Luther’s ideas became the symbolic beginning of a wave of Protestantism that floods all of Europe. His followers and other prominent reformers set the direction for Western cultural history.
Martin Luther’s life before the beginning of the reform
Martin Luther’s father, Hans, was a prosperous businessman dedicated to mining and copper processing. When Martin was still young, his father moved with his family to live in Mansfeld, an area in East Prussia. At age five, the future reformer began studying at a local school where he learned to read, write, and learn Latin. At the age of thirteen, Martin Luther began attending school in Magdeburg.
It is true that Martin’s father had planned a career as a lawyer for his son, so in 1501 he began to study law at the University of Erfurt, then one of the best universities in the German Länder. In 1505 Martin Luther received a master’s degree in law. A little later that year, he was struck by a legendary storm in which he was nearly struck by lightning. The man supported this as a sign from God and promised to become a monk if he could survive the storm. He kept his promise and, instead of returning to law school, the young man entered an Augustinian monastery.
What Martin Luther studied after receiving his doctorate in 1517 also influenced the development of Christian thought in the centuries to come.
In the early years of his life in the convent, Martin Luther quickly distinguished himself as an excellent theologian, diligently following the convent’s rules. He fasted honestly, prayed and confessed. The man lived in a room without heating, had almost no furniture, only a chair and a table, got up very early and prayed sincerely. In 1506 he became a full member of the Order.
Martin Luther, who began his monastic life, did not abandon theology. Until 1510 he studied at the universities of Erfurt and Wittenberg, and at the new University of Wittenberg he also taught. It was not until 1511 that he had to take a break from his studies, since in Rome he had to play the role of the Augustinian representative of the German lands. In 1512, the future reformer received a doctorate and became a professor of Biblical studies. What Martin Luther studied after receiving his doctorate in 1517 also influenced the development of Christian thought in the centuries to come.
Indulgences: cathedrals are built for sins
Theologians have previously questioned some of the teachings of the Church. There have been initiatives to rethink doctrines in the past. Already in the fourteenth century, movements such as Conciliarism emerged, whose basic idea was that the ecclesiastical assembly should have more power than the pope, as well as the lolard movement. Probably the most notable move was Modern devotio. The representatives of the movement sought to review and renew the practices of faith and piety following the example of Christ. It is clear that criticism or revision of certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church in 16th century Europe was not a new phenomenon.
Approximately now, the Bible and Saint Augustine’s writings. S t. In his teachings, Augustine (340-430), one of the fathers of the Church, emphasized the primacy and supremacy of the Bible over ecclesiastical designers and hierarchies. He believed that man cannot be justified only by his good works, only God can give salvation through divine grace. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church taught that salvation is possible through good works. Finally, Martin Luther took over Augustine’s essential provisions, which later became the basis of Protestantism.
Fresco in San Letrán, Roma Agustín
The practice of giving indulgences, forgiveness of sins, the Roman Catholic Church, has been corrupted over time. The trade of indulgences in German lands was theoretically prohibited, but practically no one stopped trading. At that time, the Catholic Church used the money received for indulgences for expensive construction. The Renaissance atmosphere reigned in Rome in the early sixteenth century, and the city was rich in architectural and cultural ambitions. Around 1515, Pope Leo X announced a new indulgence for which the funds raised would be allocated to St. Reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica.
In 1516, the Dominican Johann Tetzel was sent to raise money for this indulgence. As already mentioned, the theology of the Roman Catholic Church establishes that man cannot be justified and receive grace only by faith. Justification by faith depends as much as by good works. And what good work can be “credited” and donate money to the Church.
Deeply convinced that man could receive heavenly grace only through faith, Martin Luther jealously opposed the trade in indulgences. Leading such attitudes, he wrote an invitation to “a debate on the power and effectiveness of indulgences out of love and passion for the truth and a desire to bring it to light,” better known as Thesis 95. This was a list of questions. and suggestions for a discussion on indulgences. A professor at the University of Wittenberg nailed the list of theses to the door of the town church. It is true that the question of whether this action was very dramatic. You probably wanted to report your own planned and organized academic discussion.
95 theses: a stone that caused an avalanche
The 95 theses that became a symbol of the Reformation were written in a fairly moderate academic tone. However, the document was quite provocative. The first two theses argued that God foresaw that believers would seek repentance through faith, while the other two, most of whom directly criticized the trade in indulgences, seemed to underpin the first two.
The theses spread rapidly throughout the Holy Roman Empire and finally reached Rome. In 1518 Martin Luther was summoned to Augsburg, a city in southern Germany, to defend his position against the empire. The debate between Martin Luther and Cardinal Thomas Cajeton lasted three days, but no consensus was reached. The cardinal defended the way the Church gives indulgences, and Luther, who refused to renounce its provisions, returned to Wittenberg.
95 theses, a peculiar manifesto by Martin Luther, eventually became a symbol of this gap in the Roman Catholic Church. However, the Reformer himself was a devoted member of the Catholic Church, a religious monk, and an enthusiastic scholar who dedicated his life to God, religious practice, and the teaching of the fundamental principles of Christianity. His separation from the Church was prompted not so much by theological questions as by a question of principle. Dissatisfied with the practice of the ecclesiastical hierarchy of granting forgiveness of sins for a fee, he began to urge the Church to undertake internal reforms, to renounce the sold forgiveness of sins, and to worship the leaders of the Church.
Separation of Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church.
When Martin Luther wrote and hung his theses on the church door, the Saxon voter was Friedrich the Wise. It was he who, as a humanist and scientist, founded the University of Wittenberg, where he also taught the Reformer. Frederick the Wise’s response to Luther’s theological challenge has been complicated, writes National Geographic. Although he remained a Catholic all his life, he decided to protect the rebellious Augustine from the wrath of the emperor and the Church. When Martin Luther was invited to Rome in 1518, a Saxon elector intervened in the dispute on his part. It was he who claimed that the reformer’s interrogation took place in Germany, in a much safer space than Rome. The Church was forced to pay attention to the will of Friedrich the Wise.
Scanpix / AP Photo / Martin Luther
In the same year, the Pope condemned Martin Luther’s writings as inconsistent with the teaching of the Church. Several commissions were convened a year later to assess the training of the reformer. The first commission said Martin Luther’s teaching was heretical, but the second commission’s statement was much more forgiving, saying that Martin Luther’s writings and teachings were “scandalous and offensive to godly ears.”
Meanwhile, feeling secure, the reformer himself began to regularly participate in public debates on religious reforms. He went on to broaden his criticism of the Church and even stated that any ecclesiastical assembly, council, or even individual believers have the power to question the authority of the Pope as long as they base their arguments on Scripture. Luther even dared to say that the Church was not built on papal stone, but on faith in Christ (the first pope was Saint Peter, whose name meant “rock”, “stone”).
Probably at that time Martin Luther realized that the movement promoted by his theses also had a political dimension. In the 1520s he wrote a treatise on the “Christian nobility of the German nation”. In his speech, he stated that every Christian can be a clergyman from the moment he is baptized, that any believer who reads the Scriptures has the right to interpret this, and that any believer has the right to choose a synod. Such statements seemed and were revolutionary for the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the time.
It is worth noting that before inspiring a rather spontaneous Reform movement and confronting the Roman Catholic Church, Martin Luther himself did not expect such a stir and certainly did not plan to become its face. He had no ambition to establish a separate faith and become a kind of father to a separate Church and to provoke a new religious movement. In his actions, Martin Luther sought primarily to reform the Catholic Church from within. However, as disagreements deepened and the hierarchies of the Catholic Church continued to diligently maintain their positions, it became clear that a consensus with the Catholic Church would not be reached.
His original goal, the internal reform of the Roman Catholic Church, was accomplished after his death.
Finally, on June 15, 1520, exactly 500 years ago, Pope Leo X warned Martin Luther in the Bull of Exsurge Domine that he was in danger of separating from the Church if he did not withdraw 41 sentences from his texts, including 95 theses. The reformer had sixty days to do it. The bull was read in the cities of the Holy Roman Empire. Nuncio Pope Karl von Miltitz tried to agree on a decision, but on December 10, Martin Luther burned the pope’s bull. A few months later, on January 3, 1521, the pope separated the reformer from the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1521 Martin Luther appeared at the convention in Worms. Here again he was asked to resume his words, but once again he refused to do so, and it was there that he uttered his famous phrase: “Here I am, I cannot do anything else, God help me.” On May 25, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V of Worms, signed an edict against Martin Luther ordering the burning of the reformer’s writings. The man spent the following year hiding in Eisenach, where he began one of the greatest projects of his life: the translation of the New Testament into German.
Martin Luther failed to control the Reform movement
He soon returned to Wittenberg, but the Reformation movement, ignited by his 95 theses and other writings, so far exceeded his own ambitions that Martin Luther himself could no longer control it. The Reformation became a political reality and a problem. Other leaders began to emerge, separate theological doctrines began to form, and civil unrest erupted: a peasant war broke out in German lands.
Martin Luther had previously spoken out against the Church’s position on celibacy for the clergy when, in 1525, he married the former nun Catherine von Bor, with whom he had five children. Over time, Martin Luther’s views became more radical on some issues, declaring the Pope as the antichrist, advocating the expulsion of the Jews from the Holy Roman Empire, and even speaking out against polygamy, following the examples of patriarchs of the Church mentioned in the Old Testament.
Martin Luther died on February 18, 1546. The Church’s intermittent general assembly of the Church, which had been intermittent for a couple of decades, began while the Reformer was still alive, but its original purpose, the internal reform of the Catholic Church Romana, was achieved after her death. It took several decades from the beginning of the Reformation for the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church to commemorate their pride and begin a review of the Church’s attitudes and practices.
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