The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 with Martin Luther publishing his 95 Theses challenging Catholic Church practices. Over the next century, reformers like Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII promoted ideas like sola scriptura and challenged papal authority, leading northern Europe like Germany and Switzerland to adopt Protestantism as the dominant religion. The Catholic Church responded with the Counter-Reformation, reforming itself through the Council of Trent while also persecuting Protestants. Today, the Reformation continues to impact principles of religious freedom, separation of church and state, and widespread access to scripture in local languages.

1. AN AYODELE OGUNSAKIN ORIGINAL

2. Introduction
The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political,
intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in
place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the
modern era. In northern and central Europe, reformers like Martin Luther,
John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged papal authority and questioned the
Catholic Church’s ability to define Christian practice. They argued for a
religious and political redistribution of power into the hands of Bible- and
pamphlet-reading pastors and princes. The disruption triggered wars,
persecutions and the so-called Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s
delayed but forceful response to the Protestants.

3. Dating the reformation
 Historians usually date the start of the Protestant Reformation to the 1517
publication of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses.” Its ending can be placed
anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which allowed for the
coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany, to the 1648
Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The key ideas of
the Reformation—a call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, not
tradition, should be the sole source of spiritual authority—were not
themselves novel. However, Luther and the other reformers became the
first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a
wide audience.

4. Germany and Lutheranism
 Martin Luther (1483-1546) was an Augustinian monk and university
lecturer in Wittenberg when he composed his “95 Theses,” which protested
the pope’s sale of reprieves from penance, or indulgences. Although he
had hoped to spur renewal from within the church, in 1521 he was
summoned before the Diet of Worms and excommunicated. Sheltered by
Friedrich, elector of Saxony, Luther translated the Bible into German and
continued his output of vernacular pamphlets.
 When German peasants, inspired in part by Luther’s empowering
“priesthood of all believers,” revolted in 1524, Luther sided with Germany’s
princes. By the Reformation’s end, Lutheranism had become the state
religion throughout much of Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltics.

5. Switzerland and Calvinism
 The Swiss Reformation began in 1519 with the sermons of Ulrich Zwingli,
whose teachings largely paralleled Luther’s. In 1541 John Calvin, a French
Protestant who had spent the previous decade in exile writing his
“Institutes of the Christian Religion,” was invited to settle in Geneva and
put his Reformed doctrine—which stressed God’s power and humanity’s
predestined fate—into practice. The result was a theocratic regime of
enforced, austere morality.
 Calvin’s Geneva became a hotbed for Protestant exiles, and his doctrines
quickly spread to Scotland, France, Transylvania and the Low Countries,
where Dutch Calvinism became a religious and economic force for the next
400 years.

6. Britain and the ‘Middle way’
 In England, the Reformation began with Henry VIII’s quest for a male heir.
When Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of
Aragon so he could remarry, the English king declared in 1534 that he alone
should be the final authority in matters relating to the English church. Henry
dissolved England’s monasteries to confiscate their wealth and worked to place
the Bible in the hands of the people. Beginning in 1536, every parish was
required to have a copy.
 After Henry’s death, England tilted toward Calvinist-infused Protestantism
during Edward VI’s six-year reign and then endured five years of reactionary
Catholicism under Mary I. In 1559 Elizabeth took the throne and, during her
44-year reign, cast the Church of England as a “middle way” between Calvinism
and Catholicism, with vernacular worship and a revised Book of Common
Prayer.

7. The counter-reformation
 The Catholic Church was slow to respond systematically to the theological
and publicity innovations of Luther and the other reformers. The Council of
Trent, which met off and on from 1545 through 1563, articulated the
Church’s answer to the problems that triggered the Reformation and to
the reformers themselves.
 The Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation era grew more spiritual,
more literate and more educated. New religious orders, notably the Jesuits,
combined rigorous spirituality with a globally minded intellectualism, while
mystics such as Teresa of Avila injected new passion into the older orders.
Inquisitions, both in Spain and in Rome, were reorganized to fight the
threat of Protestant heresy.

8. 4 Men Who
Reformed The
Church

9. John Wycliffe
 1320 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher,
theologian, Biblical translator, reformer, and seminary professor at Oxford.
He was an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood
during the 14th century.
 Wycliffe attacked the privileged status of the clergy, which was central to
their powerful role in England. He then attacked the luxury and pomp of
local parishes and their ceremonies.
 Wycliffe was also an advocate for translation of the Bible into
the vernacular. He completed a translation directly from
the Vulgate into Middle English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's
Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the
entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament.
Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, with additional
updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and
others in 1388 and 1395.

10. Jan Hus
 often referred to in English as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest,
philosopher, early Christian reformer and Master at Charles University in
Prague. After John Wycliffe, the theorist of ecclesiastical Reformation, Hus is
considered the first Church reformer, as he lived before Luther, Calvin, and
Zwingli.
 Hus was a key predecessor to Protestantism, and his teachings had a strong
influence on the states of Western Europe, most immediately in the approval
of a reformist Bohemian religious denomination, and, more than a century
later, on Martin Luther himself. He was burned at the stake for heresy against
the doctrines of the Catholic Church, including those on ecclesiology,
the Eucharist, and other theological topics.
 After Hus was executed in 1415, the followers of his religious teachings (known
as Hussite's) rebelled against their Roman Catholic rulers and defeated five
consecutive papal crusades between 1420 and 1431, in what became known as
the Hussite Wars.] A century later, as many as 90% of inhabitants of the Czech
lands were Hussites. Although the Czech Republic was the site of one of the
most significant pre-reformation movements, there are only few Protestant
adherents; mainly due to historical reasons like persecution of Protestants by
the Catholic Habsburg, restrictions during the Communist rule, and also the
ongoing secularization.

11. Peter Waldo
 Peter Waldo, Valdo, Valdes, or Waldes (c. 1140 – c. 1205), also Pierre
Vaudès or de Vaux, is credited as the founder of the Waldensians, a Christian
spiritual movement of the Middle Ages, descendants of which still exist in
various regions of southern Europe. Citation evidence by Eberhard de Béthune
stated the name Waldenses more than 10 years before Peter Waldo, (1170)
and the monk Bernard de Foncald wrote about the heretics who were known
as "Valdensis" who were condemned during the pontificate of Pope Lucius II
in 1144, decades before Peter Waldo. These extant citation sources clearly
prove the existence of the actual name Valdenses existed prior to Peter.

12. Martin Luther
 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German professor of theology,
composer, priest, monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.
Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic
Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment
for sin could be purchased with money, proposing an academic discussion of
the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His
refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520
and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521
resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as
an outlaw by the Emperor.
 Luther taught that salvation and, subsequently, eternal life are not earned by
good deeds but are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the
believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.

13. 7 Causes of The
Reformation
 The presence of a printing press in a city by 1500 made Protestant adoption
by 1600 far more likely.
 Protestant literature was produced at greater levels in cities where media
markets were more competitive, making these cities more likely to adopt
Protestantism.
 Ottoman incursions decreased conflicts between Protestants and Catholics,
helping the Protestant Reformation take root.
 Greater political autonomy increased the likelihood that Protestantism would
be adopted.
 Where Protestant reformers enjoyed princely patronage, they were much
more likely to succeed.
 Proximity to neighbors who adopted Protestantism increased the likelihood of
adopting Protestantism.
 Cities that had higher numbers of students enrolled in heterodox universities
and lower numbers enrolled in orthodox universities were more likely to
adopt Protestantism.

14. How Does the Reformation
affect us today
The Reformation in Europe during the 16th century was one of the most important epochs
in the history of the world. The Reformation gave us the Bible – now freely available in our
own languages. The now almost universally acknowledged principles of religious freedom,
liberty of conscience, the rule of law, separation of powers and constitutionally limited
Republics were unthinkable before the Reformation. The Reformers fought for the
principles that Scripture alone is our final authority, Christ alone is the head of the
Church and justification is by God’s grace alone, on the basis of the finished work of
Christ, received by faith alone.
Few people today realize that the first Bibles printed into English had to be smuggled into
England, and that the Bible translator, William Tyndale, was burnt at the stake for the
crime of translating the Bible into English.
Seven fathers and mothers were burned alive at Coventry for teaching the Ten
Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed to their children – in English.
The sacrifices made by the Reformers, and the far-reaching impact of their courageous
application of the Word of God to every area of life, needs to be rediscovered.