Martin Luther

MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY
PROF. M. M. NINAN
According to one account, Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in
Wittenberg on 31 October 1517. Scholars Walter Krämer, Götz Trenkler, Gerhard Ritter, and
Gerhard Prause contend that the story of the posting on the door, even though it has settled as one
of the pillars of history, has little foundation in truth. The story is based on comments made by
Philipp Melanchthon, though it is thought that he was not in Wittenberg at the time
The Latin Theses were printed in several locations in Germany in 1517. In January 1518 friends of
Luther translated the Ninety-five Theses from Latin into German. Within two weeks, copies of the
theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months, they had spread throughout Europe.
Luther's writings circulated widely, reaching France, England, and Italy as early as 1519. Students
thronged to Wittenberg to hear Luther speak. He published a short commentary on Galatians and
his Work on the Psalms. This early part of Luther's career was one of his most creative and
productive. Three of his best-known works were published in 1520: To the Christian Nobility of the
German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and On the Freedom of a Christian.
Luther's challenge to papal authority received support from German nobles who had their own
grievances. In particular, German nobles resented how the Church spent revenue collected from
German Catholics, and the fact that they had less rights than other nobles (particularly in France) to
influence the appointment of local Church officials. Thanks to the support of a noble named
Frederick "the Wise," who allowed Luther to hide at his castle named Wartburg, Luther survived his
excommunication for heresy by the Diet of Worms in January 1521. He hid out for about a year and
used the time to translate the New Testament into German. Meanwhile, as other nobles joined the
protest, Lutheranism became more secure and more groups began to propose their own religious
reforms. By 1535, nobles in a large area of Germany, plus the kings of Denmark and Sweden, had
declared themselves followers of Luther.
Luther and his supporters were not the only ones to break away from the Catholic Church. In 1527,
King Henry VIII of England asked to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled because,
after nearly twenty years, they had not yet produced a male heir to the throne. The pope refused to
grant the annulment thanks to pressure from Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V. So Henry declared his independence from the Pope in 1534 by creating the Church of
England and naming himself as its spiritual and political leader.
Elsewhere, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Menno Simons and others launched their own religious
reform movements. As a result, by the end of the 16th century, perhaps as much as one third of
Western Europe's population no longer believed in the supremacy of the pope. One consequence
was the Catholic Counter-Reformation, a systematic attempt to reform the Catholic Church, which
eliminated many of the practices that provoked the original reformation.
(http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his101/web/37luther.htm)
On November 9, 1518 the pope condemned Luther’s writings as conflicting with the teachings of
the Church.
One year later a series of commissions were convened to examine Luther’s teachings. The first
papal commission found them to be heretical, but the second merely stated that Luther’s writings
were “scandalous and offensive to pious ears.”
Finally, in July 1520 Pope Leo X issued a papal bull (public decree) that concluded that Luther’s
propositions were heretical and gave Luther 120 days to recant in Rome.
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