Zaidi soma hapa
On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar Martin Luther
approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and
nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions
that would begin the Protestant Reformation.
In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the
Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking
payment—called "indulgences"—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a
Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of
Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign
in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences
in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they
returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming
they no longer had to repent for their sins.
Luther's frustration with this practice led him to write the 95
Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German
and distributed widely. A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began
to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent,
however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the
Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his
writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued
the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and
giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected
by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the
Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.
The term "Protestant" first appeared in 1529, when Charles V revoked a
provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose whether
they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of princes and other
supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance
to God trumped their allegiance to the emperor. They became known to
their opponents as Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all
who believed the Church should be reformed, even those outside Germany.
By the time Luther died, of natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary
beliefs had formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation, which would
over the next three centuries revolutionize Western civilization.
Na Isaac Kikula, kwa msaada wa mtandao.
Barikiwa.
