The Reformation

“From the beginning of my Reformation I have asked God to send me neither

dreams, nor visions, nor angels, but to give me the right understanding of His
Word, the Holy Scriptures; for as long as I have God's Word, I know that I am
walking in His way and that I shall not fall into any error or delusion” Martin Luther.
The reformation was a very important movement that protested against the
Catholic Church. It was created 500 years ago (XVl century) in Wittenberg,
Germany, and it was initiated by Martin Luther, a Catholic monk, born in 1483 in
Eisleben, Germany.
Martin nailed a series of 95 theses which talked about his disagreement with the
Catholic Church, mainly in the sale of indulgences. The indulgences were
documents that reduced time in purgatory and they were very expensive. In these
moment of history the construction of basilica of Saint Peter was being carried out
and the pope didn’t had enough money to finance it, so he decided on selling the
indulgences and that all the money that was collected would finance the
construction. When Martin decided to hang this document he was waiting on
having a debate with the church about the topics in the theses but the church's
reaction to this pamphlet was not good. The Lutheranism was based on mainly 4
pillars: the things the Catholic church should teach are just things or events present
in the bible, which means that the purgatory didn’t exist neither the punishments of
it, also he says also we should not praise to the Virgin or angels and that the only
valid sacraments were the baptism and the Eucharist. All these actions caused a
whole wide world revolution based just on the separations of the Lutherans from
the Catholic Church.
Martin used in his favor the fact that the printing machine was created some years
before. He started to reproduce his literary works with these new invention. Later,
on 1521 the pope released a document called “Bula Decet Romanum Pontficem”
which treated about the excommunication of Luther and all the Lutherans. He
became a heretic which means that the possession and reading of his works was
prohibited, but the church was not satisfied with that, so they decided to burn all his
works and books. He was so mad that he burned the papal bull. In 1546 Martin
Luther died and on his final words he said “Desearía que mis seguidores dejaran
de emplear mi apellido; que no adoptaran el nombre de Luteranos sino el de
cristianos. Porque ¿Qué es Lutero? La doctrina no viene de mí, ni yo soy quien ha
muerto en la cruz por los demás.” But the Lutherans didn’t adopt the name of
Christians they adopted the name of Protestants.

Bibliography
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1zdeV-q5u8
“nueva enciclopedia autodidactica Zamora, historia de la humanidad”