Reformation

1. Reformation Audrius Stonkus

2. The Reformation of the 16th century was a movement within Western Christendom to purge the church of medieval abuses and to restore the doctrines and practices that the reformers believed conformed with the Bible and the New Testament model of the church. • This led to a breach between the Roman Catholic Church and the reformers whose beliefs and practices came to be called Protestantism.

3. The cultural Renaissance that occurred during the preceding century and a half was a necessary preliminary, because it raised the level of education, reemphasized the ancient classics, contributed to thought and learning, and offered Humanism and rhetoric as an alternative to Scholasticism. • Especially through its emphasis on the biblical languages and close attention to the literary texts, the Renaissance made possible the biblical exegesis that led to Martin Luther's doctrinal reinterpretation. • Moreover, Christian humanists like Desiderius Erasmus criticized ecclesiastical abuses and promoted the study of both the Bible and the church fathers. • The invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg provided a powerful instrument for the spread of learning and Reformation ideas.

4. That grave ills were spreading through the church was already evident at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, at which Pope Innocent III called for reform. The papacy itself was weakened by its move from Rome to Avignon (1309-77), by the Great Schism of the papacy, which lasted four decades thereafter, and by the doctrine that supreme authority in the church belonged to general councils (Conciliarism). • The Renaissance popes were notoriously worldly. Abuses such as simony, nepotism, and financial excesses increased. • The church was riddled with venality and immorality. The sale of Indulgences was a particularly unfortunate practice because it impinged upon true spiritual repentance and improvement of life. • At the same time a genuine upsurge of popular religiosity manifested itself and increased the disparity between the people's expectations and the church's ability to satisfy spiritual needs. Some turned to mysticism and inward religion, but the great mass of people were restless and dissatisfied.

5. A significant political change occurred during the later Middle Ages as well. The Holy Roman Empire, which had lost cohesion partly as a result of its struggle with the papacy in the Investiture Controversy, was weakened by the growth of virtually independent territorial princedoms and free imperial cities. Externally the empire was weakened by the gradual evolution of the nation-states of modern western Europe. • The monarchies in France, England, and, later, Spain were developing dynastic strength and unity that enabled them largely to control the church within their borders. • Economically, the rise of commerce and the shift to a moneyed economy had the effect of creating a stronger middle class in a more urban society.

6. Luther • The Reformation began in Germany on Oct. 31, 1517, when Martin Luther, an Augustinian university professor at Wittenberg, posted 95 theses inviting debate over the legitimacy of the sale of indulgences. The papacy viewed this as a gesture of rebellion and proceeded to take steps against Luther as a heretic. • The German humanists supported Luther's cause during the early years. The reformer's three famous treatises of 1520, An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and On the Freedom of a Christian, also won him powerful popular support. • He was excommunicated in 1521, but in April of that year at the Diet at Worms he stood before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the German princes and refused to recant unless proven wrong by the Bible or by clear reason. • He believed that salvation was a free gift to persons through the forgiveness of sins by God's grace alone and received by them through faith in Christ.

7. Luther was protected by Frederick III, elector of Saxony, and other German princes--partly out of intellectual and religious conviction, partly out of the desire to seize church property, and partly to assert independence of imperial control--gave their support to the reformers. • In 1530 many princes and cities signed the Augsburg Confession presented at the Diet of Augsburg as an expression of the evangelical faith. After years of conflict the settlement reached in the Peace of Augsburg (1555) provided that each German prince would determine the religious affiliation (Roman Catholic or Lutheran) of the territory he ruled. • Lutheranism also became the established religion of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Apart from the role of the princes, however, the Reformation spread rapidly as a popular movement. It penetrated Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and Transylvania.

8. Zwingli • The Reformation in Switzerland initially developed in Zurich under the leadership of the priest Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli had been influenced by Erasmus and by Christian humanism. He arrived at an evangelical understanding of Christianity from his study of the Bible and from contacts with Lutherans. • On Jan. 1, 1519, he began a 6-year series of sermons on the New Testament that moved the city council and the people of Zurich toward reform. The favorable response to The Sixty-Seven Articles, which he prepared for public disputation with a papal representative in 1523, proved the popularity of his program. • He called for the abolition of the Mass (and its replacement by a symbolic Lord's Supper), independence from episcopal control, and a reform of the city-state in which both priests and Christian magistrates would conform to the will of God. His influence spread to other Swiss cantons such as Basel, Saint Gall, and Bern.

9. Calvin • Through Lutheran tracts and merchant missionaries, the evangelical movement spread to France, where it won many converts, among whom was John Calvin. In 1536, Calvin went to Geneva, where a reformation led by Guillaume Farel was well under way. • Calvin was persuaded to stay in Geneva and helped organize the second major surge of Protestantism. In his Ordinances of 1541, he gave a new organization to the church consisting of pastors, doctors, elders, and deacons. • His Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) had great influence in France, Scotland (where John Knox carried the Calvinist reformation), and among the Puritans in England. Geneva became the center of a great missionary enterprise that reached into France, where the Huguenots became so powerful that a synod met in Paris in 1559 to organize a nationwide church of some 2,000 reformed congregations. • As a result of the French Wars of Religion, the Huguenot party was checked and the French monarchy kept the kingdom Catholic.