Meaning of Protestant Reformation (what is it, concept and definition)

What is Protestant Reformation:

The religious movement started by Martin Luther, a German monk, who strongly criticized the religious policy of the popes on October 31, 1517, when he published and hung his famous 95 Theses on the doors of the Cathedral of Wittenberg in Germany, 500 years ago.

The word reform indicates the action of modifying or redoing something, in this case it refers to a true religious revolution due to the changes that were generated.

For its part, Protestant is an adjective used when a person disagrees with something, and is the term that is customary to use in the Catholic Church to make mention of Lutheranism and its ramifications.

As a consequence of the criticisms made by Martin Luther, he was excommunicated after rebelling against the Catholic Church by Pope Leo X, later married and continued with his reflections on the Protestant Reformation.

However, he was not the only one who was against many of the things that happened in the Church, there were also other religious, politicians, and thinkers who shared his opinion and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.

See also:

• Reformation, Catholic Church, Schism.

Causes of the Protestant Reformation

One of the main causes that motivated Luther, and his followers, to reform the church was the sale of indulgences. For him, the Gospel should be freely preached and not be commercialized. For Luther, the basis of thought was faith.

Luther wanted to debate about the bad practices that the Roman papacy exercised, especially due to the levels of corruption that existed, because, at that time, it was common to preach the word of God in exchange for money.

The next phrase "The righteous will live by faith" was of great importance to Luther and it was the spark that sparked his movement to emphasize that religion should be based on faith, which is free as well as God's mercy, and not monetary and material wealth.

According to what Luther preached, faith is a free gift that people have and is the work of God. Having been able to identify this meaning, it was a revelation and illumination that changed the meaning of the Holy Scriptures that Luther previously had.

Other causes that also added to the discontent were the Schism of the West, when three popes clashed over the papal authority, the beginning of Romanticism, and the attitude of those priests who were unaware of the Holy Scriptures, were alcoholics and adulterers, and were not a good example of Catholicism.

Therefore, once Luther decided that the right time had come to bring his revelation and knowledge to light, he wrote 95 theses as part of an academic debate in which he exposed his disagreements with the fundamental principles of Christianity and his discovery to the rest. of the Catholic Church.

What followed next was a great controversy, Luther directly attacked John Teztel's sale of indulgences in Germany, as it was a vile way for the Church, as an institution, to profit from the payment people made to take out from purgatory the souls of their loved ones.

Until then, no one had dared, like him, to expose their annoyance. Then, on October 31, 1517, All Saints' Day, Luther published his 95 Theses, which were printed and quickly spread to various parts of Europe.

However, representatives of the Catholic Church rejected Luther's theses, proclaimed themselves the sole heirs to Christian truth, and started a persecution of all who followed the Protestant Reformation.

Once the movement of the Protestant Reformation began, a series of confrontations and wars for religious reasons were generated that lasted approximately thirty years. Back then, those who were against the Pope and the Catholic Church were called Protestants.

However, the Protestant Reformation and Protestantism expanded and reformed large numbers of Catholic churches, gaining ground and becoming one of the branches of Christianity with the most practitioners.

Years later, John Calvin, a French theologian, founded one of the most important branches of Protestantism called Calvinism, in which he considered that all the sacraments, except baptism and the Eucharist, should be eliminated, and faith based on Jesus.

This branch gave way to others such as Anabaptism, Anglican, Presbyterian and Congregationalist, among others.

The Protestant Reformation was a spiritual uprising that affected the cultural, political, economic and social perspectives of the time and that is part of the most important events in humanity.

See also the meaning of Protestantism and Christianity.

Protestant Reformation and the Counter Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was initiated by Martin Luther as an expression of his disagreement with the abuses of power and excesses that existed in the Catholic Church, as well as due to the inappropriate behavior of its leaders, generated by a great moral and religious crisis.

Therefore, as Luther's theses expanded, the Pope and the bishops met to determine a plan against the Reformation, which is now called the Counter-Reformation. At that time, the following was considered:

Restitution of the Court of the Holy Inquisition: designed to persecute, imprison and punish those who considered themselves Protestant or non-Catholic.

Index of prohibited books: it was a list made up of the titles of literary works that were considered as prohibited for exposing dogmas contrary to those of the Catholic Church.

Creation of the company of Jesus: this company was made up of Jesuits whose task was to go to the new territories conquered in the other continents and to convert the natives into Catholics.