What is protestant reformation?
- Protestant Reformation- a religious movement in the 1500’s that split the Christian
church in western Europe and led to the establishment of a number of new churches.
Factors that caused protestant reformation
People grew displeased with the church
- Financial corruption (Greed)
- Abuse of power
- Immorality
Language barriers
- Bible was only present in greek and latin, and that wasn’t the vernacular language
- So the common man couldn't read the bible
- Hence the common man had to depend on the churches interpretations of the bible
Immediate cause - Letters of Indulgence
- The pope needed money to build the st. peters basilicas church, so he sold letters of indulgence
What are letters of indulgence?
- They were pardons issued by the pope that people could buy to reduce a soul’s
time in purgatory (People could buy forgiveness)
- So while the rich could easily buy off their sins, the poor struggled to acquire money to pay off their sins. and those who couldn’t pay, would end up in hell
- Martin luther saw this and assumed that something was wrong
Martin Luther’s 95 theses
- Martin Luther was a german monk
- The 95 theses questioned the letter of indulgences, martin luther nailed them to the church board
- Indulgences
- Power of Pope
- Wealth of Church
- Back then nailing smth to the church board was a common way to put something up to debate