By 1500, there is already growing unrest within European Christendom. Many of the faithful are longing for change, for the “Reformation” of their Church - the Catholic Church. Far too great is the contrast between that which the pastorate preaches and the actual life of the popes, bishops, priests, monks and nuns - all too often characterised by extravagance and a lust for power. One man complains about these grievances louder than the rest: Martin Luther. His wake-up call will change Europe. With him begins the long-desired Reformation - and the schism in the Church.
Wittenberg, 1517: with his 95 theses, Martin Luther, monk and theology professor, challenges the Catholic Church and its sale of indulgences. Word soon reaches far-off Rome, the centre of the Catholic Church for a good 1,000 years. In the Vatican rules the pope, spiritual head and secular ruler at one and the same time. Popes such as Alexander VI exploit this unique position of power unscrupulously: in the name of the faith, huge amounts of money are collected from the Christians. But instead of spending it on pastoral care and other good works, the Pope prefers to finance magnificent buildings, an extravagant court and, not least, a series of wars. Many other clergy behave similarly in Christian Europe, surrounding themselves with pomp and splendour, seeking to expand their positions of power.
100 Years before Luther, the Prague theologian Jan Hus had already criticised the sale of indulgences. In 1415, the early reformer was convicted as a heretic at the Council of Constance and burned alive.
In Europe, an anticlerical mood prevails - even though the Church and its officials are basically still held in high esteem. Apart from the alleged or actual excesses, also often deplored is the deficient education on the part of many clerics, who are supposed to serve the people as religious teachers and role models. The clergy, for its part, has no perception of wrong-doing. Unashamedly, bishops have their portraits painted in lavish robes, some appearing brazenly with their mistresses - despite their vows to live in humility and chastity.
The wealth of the Church is mainly financed through the sale of indulgences, certificates with which the faithful can buy themselves free of sin. Business is booming. Cash is flooding into the Church coffers, for the people are obsessed with fear for their soul’s salvation after death. They envision the most terrible torments: purgatory and hell - visions of horror for the Day of Judgement. In order to gain God’s grace, they prey, do pious works, pay for masses and altars, go on pilgrimages, donate money and buy indulgences.
Martin Luther and the 95 Theses
1517: Martin Luther publishes his 95 theses, in which he strongly criticises the sale of indulgences and challenges the practices of the Catholic Church. The monk Luther preaches in the City Church of Wittenberg; at the same time he is professor of biblical interpretation and translates the Holy Scriptures anew. As far as he is concerned, only the words of the Bible hold true. He sets these at the heart of his new religious doctrine, which has enormous impact and is soon to be preached from many pulpits.
Luther translates the Bible into German. There had already been multiple religious scriptures in the language of the people in prior decades. Until then, books were almost exclusively written in Latin.
Luther’s message is very simple. His initial emphasis does not involve the disempowerment of the papal church, but “only” the salvation of the faithful. He sees the question as: how can I find a just God? How can I serve him? His simple concept: it all depends on faith alone. No amount of achievements, deeds, good works, or even indulgences mean a thing, if there is no faith. Only those who believe, according to Luther, will be accorded divine grace - without having to “pay” for it. The people must do nothing but believe.
In order to enter into a relationship with God, in Luther’s opinion, believers need neither saints nor the institution of the “Church” as an intermediary. Luther speaks of the “universal priesthood”, sweeping away the entire salvific system, the “holy monopolising” by the church in one fail swoop. A message so fundamental and easy to grasp that it develops tremendous force in the 16th Century.
The Reformers Ulrich Zwingli and Johannes Calvin
Thanks to the innovation of the printing press, Luther’s message is quickly disseminated throughout Europe. Now further reformers also take the stage - and they are far more radical than the theology professor from Wittenberg. For them, Luther’s doctrine doesn’t go far enough. They are the Swiss Ulrich Zwingli and the Frenchman Johannes Calvin.
At this time, Zwingli is pastor at Zurich Cathedral, until today, the most significant church in the Swiss city. From the pulpit, like Luther, he preaches against everything he regards as “unbiblical”: the Church’s abuse of power, the sale of indulgences, but also the vow of celibacy, the prescribed unmarried state of the priesthood. For him, only the words of the Bible matter. Like Luther, Zwingli makes the Holy Scripture the centre and guiding principle of his religious doctrine.
Zwingli convinces the City Council of his doctrine. Citizens and parishes now become a single unit. As of 1523, the city authorities also supervise the spiritual order of the community. This drastically changes people’s lives, intruding into the very family circle; for the citizens of Zurich must now live godly and virtuous lives. On the street and at home, prohibitions pervade everyday life. Cursing, playing cards and dice, ostentatious jewellery and a life in luxury, even public festivals like carnival, are no longer permitted. In Church, Zwingli only allows the word of God, rejecting all else - music, song and images. Nothing must distract from the true faith. Holy pictures and altars, symbols of the old church, are everywhere destroyed.
The reformatory iconoclasm led to the total destruction of countless paintings, sculptures and church windows. Johannes Calvin believed that the Bible prohibited the depiction of God and that the worship of the saints was idolatry.
Faith is regarded as a purely spiritual matter. Everything superficial must be removed, for it is nothing but idolatry. Luther is more tolerant. He believes that the simple people, who can neither read nor write, need images for their faith, their emotions must be addressed. In 1529, it comes to a religious discussion between Luther and Zwingli. There are many similarities, but apart from the iconoclastic controversy, there is one other irreconcilable conflict: Holy Communion. For Zwingli, it is only commemoration of the Last Supper before the crucifixion of Jesus. Luther, on the other hand, insists that in the celebration of the Communion in bread and wine, Jesus is truly present - and not just symbolically. This is such a key theological point that it leads to a schism within the protestant movement, which can no longer be reunified. This is still the case today. Since the 16th century, the Lutheran and the Swiss Reformed Church have gone their separate ways.
The Frenchman Johannes Calvin founds a third reformatory stream. He, too, is more radical than Luther. Geneva, 1537: he establishes his own church regime: puritanical and godly. Calvin proclaims his doctrine in the Church of St. Pierre. He is convinced that, prior to birth, God has already either chosen or rejected every soul.
Not only does Calvin seek to reform the Church, he wants to change the lives of the people; their customs, their daily life, their work. As “tools of God”, he strives to make Geneva into the Holy City. A religious “morals council” keeps strict vigil over the behaviour of all citizens, which also applies to family life and sexual morals. Those who do not subject themselves to Calvin’s rules, face draconian punishments. One sanction consists of being excluded from Communion - the consequences of which were far more drastic in those days than they may seem today. For the excluded are likewise ostracised from the community and completely isolated. Several dissenters even wind up at the stake.
Despite these rigid standards, the religiously persecuted seek refuge in Geneva. Calvin later founds his own academy, in order to train clerics according to his concepts. As preachers, they carry Calvinism into France, England and the Netherlands.
The Anabaptists in Munster
In the Westphalian city of Munster, a particularly radical stream of the reformation comes to power in the 1530s: the Anabaptists. As the name implies, their goal is to enforce adult baptism. The Anabaptists reject the baptism of children after birth and thereby born automatically into the church. As adults, people should actively decide for the faith. A radical perspective for the times.
At the Lamberti Church in Munster, three iron cages still hang, in which the Anabaptist leaders were tortured to death and displayed. They are the originals, which were badly damaged in WWll and had to be restored.
In Munster, an Anabaptist Kingdom emerges, ruled by its king, a certain Jan van Leiden. The Anabaptists are certain that they are the “chosen” and await the end of the world in their “New Jerusalem”. According to the prophecy, at Easter 1543, the Messiah will return to earth in Munster. The Anabaptists turn city life upside down in accordance with their radical doctrine. They introduce community of property and likewise polygamy, for all women shall imperatively be married. And as there are many more women than men in the city at that time, many men marry several wives. Apart from his queen, Jan van Leiden himself has 15 further wives.
Many contemporaries consider the Anabaptist rule to be a complete reversal of all order. Catholics as well as Protestants vehemently denounce the Anabaptist doctrine. The prince bishop of Munster, the actual sovereign, lays siege to the town, seeking to exterminate the “den of iniquity”. Under his siege, the Anabaptist kingdom is transformed into a hideous regime. Those who offer resistance are imprisoned - including women who do not choose to marry. For 16 months, the entrapped citizens resist attacks, despite erupting famine. A state of emergency prevails in the town. Only in 1536, is the bishop able to retake the city.
A gruesome end awaits Jan van Leiden and other Anabaptists. Their tongues are ripped out with red-hot tongs, their bodies flayed. After hours of torture, they are stabbed to death and their corpses publicly displayed in cages on the tower of the Lamberti Church: “As a warning for the people, and food for the animals”. The three iron cages at the Lamberti Church still bear witness to the terrible end of the Anabaptist kingdom, an early-modern theocracy on earth.
The Reformation in Scandinavia and England
Merchants and evangelists bring the Lutheran movement very early to Scandinavia. King Christian III of Denmark becomes the first protestant king in 1536. Having witnessed Luther years before at the Imperial Diet in Worms, he is an enthusiastic follower of his doctrine, which is soon proclaimed throughout the churches of his country. Luther’s translation of the Holy Scripture becomes the template for the Danish bible. The Wittenberg parish priest Johannes Bugenhagen visits Denmark and compiles the new ecclesiastical order or church constitution. By the end of the 16th century, all Scandinavia is a mighty bastion of the Lutheran Church.
King Henry VIII of England knows no scruples when it comes to power. For that, he establishes his own church. Wives, who stand in his way, are executed.
The Reformation takes quite a different course in England. King Henry VIII is actually a staunch Catholic. He celebrates mass several times a day and attacks the writings of Luther. He is a true ally of the Pope and the Church of Rome - that is, until Rome refuses a personal request: the dissolution of his marriage. As his wife has been unable to bear him an heir to the throne, he wishes to marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. When the Pope demurs, he breaks with Rome.
Henry VIII manages to win Parliament over to his side and declares himself head of the English Church. Henry covers himself theologically and legally. In 1534, Parliament adopts a law making the king the head of the English Church in place of the Pope. The “Book of Common Prayer” becomes the foundation for the “Church of England”. This state church, however, is not completely based on reformatory theology. From the new doctrine, Henry VIII picks and chooses what suits him best as king, for instance, criticism of the monasteries. Henry VIII dissolves the monasteries, which enables him to take possession of their huge landholdings and vast wealth.
Only under his daughter Elisabeth I, is the Anglican Church permanently established. It is the beginning of a confessional dualism between Protestantism and Catholicism which continues to this day.
The Struggle of Faith: The Inquisition, Jesuits, Religious Wars, Confessionalisation
The spread of the Reformation seals the end of the Catholic Church as the only universal church of western Christianity. Within just 40 years, the Reformation has conquered large swathes of Europe, reaching its farthest expansion around 1570. But then there is a turning point. The papal church goes on the offensive. In Rome, a new authority takes up the fight against the “evangelical heresy” - the Inquisition. Reformatory writings are soon on the index, a list of forbidden books. Obstinate and recidivist heretics risk ending up at the stake. Those who do not recant, who do not profess to the true Catholic faith, must risk prison and the death penalty.
The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, also described as the Blood Wedding of Paris, is a massacre of the French Protestants, known as Huguenots. Later, many of them flee to Germany as religious refugees.
The Papal church also reacts theologically to the challenges posed by the Reformation. In 1545, Pope Paul III convenes the Council of Trent, in order to renew the Catholic Church “root and branch”. The council mitigates some of the worst abuses and introduces reforms. The Catholic doctrine is now formalised, in order to clearly delineate it from evangelical “Heresy”.
The Catholic Church undergoes a powerful thrust towards modernisation. It, too, now avails itself of the printing press, to disseminate its dogmas. These are now very precisely formulated and clearly defined in a new catechism, a new creed. And the Catholic Church relies on propaganda. Endorsed by the pope, the Jesuits begin their missionary work under their founder Ignatius von Loyola. The “Society of Jesus” is to regain lost terrain for the Catholic Church.
The question of faith profoundly divides Europe in the latter half of the 16th century, even within individual nations, as in France, where there is a very strong Calvinist movement. When in 1572, in Paris, the Catholic daughter of the king is to marry a Calvinist, a Huguenot, foreseen as a sign of reconciliation - it comes to a bloodbath. In what becomes known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, blind, religious hatred erupts over the course of several days, resulting in 10,000 dead throughout France, 3,000 in Paris alone. The floods of the Seine are said to have turned blood-red. It is the gruesome harbinger of the coming religious wars in Europe.
Educational Film: Martin Luther and the Reformation - The World in the 1500s
This article is based on a film on the DVD „Martin Luther and the Reformation“. In Part ll of our documentary series, “The World in the 1500s”, we focus on Martin Luther and the Reformation. In the main film and six modular films, we offer a comprehensive overview of the dramatic changes triggered by Luther’s rebellion against the Catholic Church. Excitingly and educationally narrated, with interviews from experts and supported by didactic material, this DVD is ideal for schools and those interested in historical events.
