Martin Luther

MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY
PROF. M. M. NINAN
The trial that led to the birth of the modern world.
Before the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the Diet of Worms in the spring of 1521, as
Luther biographer Roland H. Bainton noted,
Martin Luther bravely defended his written attacks on orthodox Catholic beliefs and denied the
power of Rome to determine what is right and wrong in matters of faith.
By holding steadfast to his interpretation of Scripture, Luther provided the impetus for the
Reformation, a reform movement that would divide Europe into two regions, one Protestant and
one Catholic, and that would set the scene for religious wars that would continue for more than a
century, not ending until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
On May 25, the Holy Roman emperor Charles V signed an edict against Luther, ordering his
writings to be burned.
This was not an easy thing since this would have ended up on his immediate execution as a heretic
as soon as the edict against him as a heretic is signed.
Eck debated with Luther and his disciple,
Andreas Karlstadt, on such topics as papal
primacy and the infallibility of church councils.
In 1520 Eck visited Rome, where he helped
compose the papal bull Exsurge Domine (June
1520), in which Pope Leo X condemned 41 of
Luther’s theses and threatened the latter with
excommunication. Leo X then commissioned
Eck to publish and enforce the new papal bull
throughout Germany.
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