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The Reformation in Europe
unfoldTwo entries with the same name
The top-down religious reform movement began in Europe in the 16th century, usually referring to Martin Luther's 95 Theses in 1517 and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The movement laid the foundations of Protestantism, and at the same time dismantled the church and state system dominated by the Catholic Church. The movement broke the spiritual shackles of Catholicism and laid the foundation for the development of capitalist and pluralistic modern societies in Western Europe. During the Reformation, representatives included: Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley and so on.
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- Chinese name
- reformation
- beacon
- " The ninety-Five Theses "
- Representative figure
- Martin Luther , John Calvin , John Wesley [1]
catalogue
In the second half of the 15th century, with the emergence and development of European capitalism, feudalism collapsed, and the Holy See, as the spiritual pillar of medieval feudal rule, also began to decline. In Britain, France and Spain, the power of the central government rose. The monarchs tried to weaken the competitiveness of the church by controlling the appointment of clergy, and to limit the flow of money to Rome. The sovereign states of Europe began to free themselves from papal control. After the union of Ferdinand and Isabela, Spain gradually realized the nationalization of the church, making the Spanish Church the most independent Catholic church in Europe at that time. France also became a centralized monarchy, placing the Church under the control of the crown, and England began the process of separation from the Roman Church, beginning with the establishment of the Christian Church between Henry VII and Henry VIII (1485-1547). Since the Holy Roman Empire, Germany has never had a unified central authority. On the eve of the Reformation, the so-called Empire was nothing more than a loose federation, with political disunity, so that it was still controlled by the Pope, and was even more economically exploited and oppressed by the Papacy.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Church was in urgent need of purification and reform on all fronts. The papacy of Avignon and the Great schism of the Catholic Church greatly reduced the papacy's authority, and the 200-year long Crusades and the brutal Inquisition showed the papacy's fallacy. During the Renaissance, popes lived more like secular monarchs than spiritual leaders. As rulers of the papal states, they were also involved in a maelstrom of war and political intrigue. Their political and artistic projects (such as the decoration of the Vatican by famous Italian artists and the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica) were costly. The Pope often sold his posts to collect money to replenish his depleted Treasury. In order to maintain the enormous economic expenses of the Church and the extravagant life of the prelates, the Church established a variety of taxes, including tithes, special donations, and amnesty donations, in addition to indulgences. The hierarchy made the difference between the high priests and the low priests and between the priests and the believers more and more extensive. Most of the bishops came from noble families and had little contact with the people. In many places, secular monarchs already controlled the appointment of bishops and the disposition of other ecclesiastical offices; In turn, they use their power to reward lucrative relatives and friends. Some of the episcopal mansions of the Holy Roman Empire were also the residences of princes, so bishops with ecclesiastical and lay powers ruled over vast territories. Bishops and pastors, even if they do not perform pastoral duties, have multiple "emoluments" and do not even have to live in the district. This is because the bishop pays little attention to the details of the parish, and instead the parish is taken care of by assistant priests who have no formal education and do not receive a good living allowance. Celibacy was strictly frowned upon, and it was common for clergy to live together or have civil wives. Discipline was lax in the monasteries. In particular, parish priests neglect preaching. Popular religious beliefs are often mixed with superstitions and misconceptions about theology. The Pope had great power and wealth, the prelates enjoyed great social status, and three of the seven electors in Germany were archbishops.
The Renaissance laid the intellectual foundation for the Reformation. The humanist movement challenged medieval authority. Humanists, such as Erasmus, devoted themselves to running schools, printing the Bible and the writings of the ancient Fathers, hoping to reform society and restore the unity of the Christian Church by opening up new areas of study. Although they did not question the basic tenets of the tradition, they even opposed secession from the orthodox church in order to preserve the traditional church structure. However, through the study of primitive Christianity, they realized that the hierarchy of the contemporary church, the secularization of clergy, and the tedious debates of scholasticism all deviated from the primitive teachings of Christianity, which was a sign of the collapse of Christianity. A few thinkers have dared to go to war against traditional ideas, such as the Bible scholar Wissol first proposed that the authority of the Bible is above the Pope, that only God can forgive SINS, and that people can only be saved by faith through direct association with God. In this theological view, theocracy and the visible organization of the church are greatly reduced. Martin Luther admired Wissol's teachings and published them in 1522, which became the basis for the basic teachings of the Reformation. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Bible had been translated into several languages, and with the invention and application of printing, more people could read the Bible directly, which was objectively conducive to the spread of religious Reform ideas.
Within the church, the tendency to split already exists. Heretical sects such as the medieval Albigenites, Bogmillites, and Verdoites, although suppressed, played a role in the history of Christianity as the forerunners of reform. The Wycliffe and Lollards of 14th century England and the Husses of 15th century Bohemia had a more direct influence on the Reformation.
The Reformation originated in Germany. In 1517, Leo X sent Teicher to Germany to sell indulgences. On October 31, Luther posted his 95 Theses against the sale of indulgencers in front of Wittenberg Church, thus opening the prelude to the Reformation. In 1520, King Leo X issued a Rebuke to Martin Luther, giving Luther 60 days to change his position. Luther publicly burned the Pope's encyclical, and published three articles, including an Open Letter to the German Christian Nobility on the Reform of the Church's privilege System, to clarify his theological views and political program. In 1521, King Charles V summoned Luther to stand trial before the Reichstag of Worms. Because Luther refused to renounce his claims, Charles V issued the Edict of Worms, which condemned Luther as a heretic. At the beginning of Luther's Reformation, he was actively supported by Thomas M. Minzer. In 1524, the mass movement led by Munzer had already formed a peasant war against the rule of the nobility and the church, but Luther stood in the position of defending the interests of the ruling class and published the Book of Saxony Princes against rebellious demons, calling Munzer a "monster and devil" and asking the princes to use force to suppress it. After the failure of the large-scale peasant uprising in Germany in 1524-25, Luther completely lost faith in the people and placed his hopes on the nobility, and the German religious reform was gradually used by the princes.
In 1529, Charles V convened an Imperial council in Spires to reaffirm the Edict of Worms, an attempt to eradicate the Reformation and restore Catholic power. The Lutheran princes protested, and the Protestants were called "protesters." The Augsburg Creed, drafted by Luther, Melanchthon and others, was rejected by Parliament. Charles V also gave the Lutherans one year to renounce their creed, or else they would be attacked by force. In response to papal and Kaiser repression, Protestant princes in northern, central, and southern Germany formed the League of Schmalkalden, and Catholic princes also formed the League of Nuremberg. In 1552, the Lutheran princes, with the support of France, defeated Charles V, and the two sides concluded the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. The signing of this contract marked the formal establishment of Lutheranism. It basically follows the principle of the territorial church, that is, "as the King dictates."
The Reformation broke out in Germany and quickly spread to the countries of Western Europe. In the regions where the new bourgeoisie was stronger, such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the south of France, the Reformation was carried out in the form of a mass movement and was therefore more thorough. In the centralized monarchies with strong feudal forces, such as England and the Nordic countries, the reform was generally carried out from the top down, the king replaced the Pope as the head of the church, weakened the position of the Holy See, and established an independent national church.
Zurich and Geneva were the two centers of the Swiss Reformation. The Swiss religious reformer Zwingli was supported by the Zurich City Council to lead the reform of the church in the northeastern cantons of Switzerland. In 1531 Zwingli fought against the allied forces of the five States in the Catholic forest, and Hukapil was killed. After that, Zwingli gradually merged with Calvinism. Calvin of France carried out reforms in Geneva. 1536 Calvin published "Essentials of Christianity", 1541 Calvin in Geneva established a political and religious republic, and was entrusted by the city council, leading the drafting of the church code system, the abolition of the episcopal system, the establishment of Presbyterian system. Around 1566, all the cantons that had previously accepted Zwingli's ideas accepted Calvinism, and the two schools became one.
In the 16th century, France established a centralized absolute monarchy, which was to a certain extent free from the control of the Church, but still adhered to the Catholic faith and opposed the Reformation. Francis I often fought wars with Spain, and also struggled with the German emperor Charles V, so he adopted a strategy of supporting the German Protestant princes, and the persecution of Protestants in France was also reduced. In 1534, when France again began to suppress Protestants, Calvin fled to Switzerland, but his teachings continued to spread in France and were supported by southern nobles. As of 1559, there were 49 Calvinist churches in France, and in the same year a national convention was held to formally affirm the Calvinist creed. French Protestants were known as the Huguenots, and a series of wars broke out between the Huguenots and Catholic forces in 1562-1598. When Henry III died in 1589, the French Catholic aristocracy refused to accept the Huguenot Henry IV as heir to the throne, and Henry IV was forced to return to Catholicism in 1593. In 1598, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, which stipulated that Catholicism was the state religion of France, giving the Huguenots freedom of belief and political equality. France became the first country to tolerate Protestantism and achieve national unity and religious differences, and the Huguenots' situation worsened when Henry IV was assassinated by fanatic Catholics in 1610. Between 1615 and 1625, the Huguenots held uprisings, all of which were unsuccessful. The Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685.
In 1531, Henry VIII forced the English Synod to declare him "the sole sovereign Lord of the Church of England, and even the supreme head, as permitted by the law of Christ." . In 1533 King Henry VIII forbade the Church of England to pay tribute to the Holy See. The following year, Parliament passed the Acts of Supremacy, which made the Church of England no longer subject to the Pope, but made the King the supreme head of the Church of England, and established the Church of England as the state religion. Later, the reform movement was supported by Edward VI, and Mary I re-established relations between England and the Church. When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, she changed the title of the King of England from "Supreme Head" to "Supreme Administrator". In 1559, England established the Episcopal Conference with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its supreme religious leader. In 1563, the English Parliament passed the Thirty-Nine Articles, marking the completion of the top-down religious reform and the final formation of the Anglican Church. Elizabeth accommodated some Protestant views in doctrine, but kept the old Catholic system as much as possible in organizational system and liturgy, thus avoiding the religious wars that had occurred in France and Germany. Calvinist Protestants, however, were not satisfied with Elizabeth's "incomplete reformation" and demanded the removal of Catholic remnants from the national Church, launching a Puritan movement calling for a "pure church." The Westminster Assembly of the Long Parliament of 1643-1648 was dominated by Puritans, with representatives of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Westminster Creed, based on Calvinist doctrine, unified the religious beliefs of England, Scotland and Ireland, and abolished episcopacy in favor of Presbyterism. In 1647 the Church of Scotland formally accepted the Westminster Creed. This creed later became a fundamental tenet of Reformed churches in the English-speaking world. In the civil war between King and Parliament, the Parliamentary army led by Cromwell won, and Charles I was executed for treason. Cromwell was a Puritan who, out of political necessity, was closer to the Independent Church; During his reign, although he acknowledged the existence of the Church of England, he also rejected episcopacy and Presbyterism. After the restoration of the Stuart Dynasty in 1660, Charles II fully restored the original ordinances of the Church of England, and issued the Code of Galladon in 1662, based on the Book of Common Prayer in the Elizabethan era, with a few amendments; And decreed that all priests must publicly approve and uphold the book; All unordained priests are required to perform the ordination of bishops and to proclaim allegiance to the National Church. The result was the expulsion of about 2,000 Presbyterian, Baptist, and Independent clergy, and the final break between the Puritans and the Anglican Church, the so-called "nonconformists."
In 1536, the Dutch Catholic priest Mennonite left the Catholic Church and joined the Anabaptists. After the failure of the Anabaptist Munster Commune uprising, the Mennonites organized the Mennonite Order in the Netherlands, which gained great development. After the Spanish invasion in 1540, patriotic Protestants, dissatisfied with the Mennonite pacifist doctrine, joined the Calvinists. After the promulgation of the so-called "Bloody Edict" by Charles V in 1550, Protestants in the Netherlands were persecuted. In 1556, Philip II inherited the throne of Spain and tried to strengthen his control over the Netherlands, forcing the Netherlands and Spain to be completely unified in politics and religion, and the people rebelled against it. In 1566, a large-scale iconoplastic movement broke out in Flandell in the middle of the Netherlands. Under the leadership of William of Orange, the revolution against Spanish rule under the banner of the Reformation was successful, and in 1581 the provinces of the northern Netherlands established the Dutch Republic, which became the first bourgeois republic in Europe.
In 1667, the Scottish Parliament adopted the Calvinist Creed drafted by Knox, which became the official church of Scotland. In 1536, Denmark officially accepted Lutheranism. In 1527, a Lutheran State church was established in Sweden. Finland was then part of Sweden and adopted Protestantism. In 1554, Lutheran churches were founded in Lithuania and Estonia. By the middle of the 16th century, the Lutheran Church was dominant in Northern Europe. The Husites formed the Bohemian Brethren in 1457, and carried out reforms within the national Church, denying the authority of the Catholic Church, demanding the restoration of the purity of Christianity, the abolition of hierarchies, and the establishment of a Christian community of common living. In the second half of the 15th century, the Order became a force for reform in Bohemia and Moravia, and after being expelled from Bohemia in the middle of the 16th century, it became known as the Moravian Brethren. The French Anabaptists fled to Moravia and founded the Hittite Church headed by Herter in 1533. In the 17th century he was forced to move to the Czech Republic. In 1573, Poland passed the Warsaw Agreement, which allowed the coexistence of Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Bohemian Brothers.
Due to the influence of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, Protestantism failed to gain ground in Spain and Italy, the major Catholic countries of Southern Europe.
The Reformation is often regarded as the beginning of the modern world. Along with the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the European discovery of the American continent, and the Reformation changed the perception of the Western world. The most obvious consequence of the Reformation was the schism of Western Christianity and a long period of misunderstanding and hostility between the sects. On the positive side, the Reformation provided a necessary purification of church life and a necessary clarification of doctrine. Religious beliefs have become more personal and personal. Both Catholicism and Protestantism carried out spiritual innovations that emphasized man's inner encounter with God. Religious culture was fundamentally changed. Protestantism introduced congregational chanting, and Catholic spirituality was embodied in Baroque art and music.
Secular culture is also affected. Luther's translation of the Bible profoundly influenced the development of German. He preached that each person was directly called by God, affecting the emergence of lay culture, separate from the divine realm. The decline of church authority and the loss of church property contributed to the establishment and strengthening of new nation-states in Europe. The Reformation shook the theocracy of the Catholic Church and changed the situation of theocracy.
The practice of religious tolerance or freedom of religion was one of the important achievements of the Reformation. Since Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the 4th century, the dominant Orthodox church has adopted a hostile and repressive policy against the so-called heresy. Both Lutherans and Reformed Protestants were intolerant of so-called heresies. Luther himself, though opposed to violence in matters of faith, later participated in the persecution of Anabaptists; Calvin went even further. Later in the Reformation, the Protestant denominations changed their practices. The peace treaties concluded after various wars of religion provided for the coexistence of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Protestant Lutherans and Converts, enjoying the same freedom of belief and political rights. This marked the end of the old days of religious persecution. By the end of the 16th century, the death penalty for heresy was almost extinct. The principle of freedom of conscience emerges in the inevitable compromises of religious wars.
Due to the influence of humanism, Protestantism attaches more importance to human personality and earthly life, and propagates democratic ideas. Following the Renaissance, the Religious Reform further impacted the theological constraint on science and free thought, and brought about profound changes in literature, art, science, philosophy, education and other fields.
Protestants attach great importance to universal education and take running schools as one of the means of preaching. Luther advocated the establishment of publicly funded schools in all towns and villages, and compulsory compulsory education for children to learn both religion and culture. Melanchthon pioneered the graded teaching method and wrote a large number of textbooks. The schools he founded in Wittenberg, Strasbourg, Geneva and other places became a typical example of Protestant schools. Schooling during this period broke with the Latin school tradition, which was dominated by religion and classics, and introduced natural sciences and other subjects, with attention to improving pedagogy. The Czech educator Comenius, known as the "father of modern educational science" in the west, put forward a complete educational system from family to university, from city to countryside in his Great Teaching published in 1632.
Protestantism advocated preaching in popular national languages, and issued a large number of propaganda materials in various forms with plain and easy to understand characters, which effectively promoted the development of dialect literature. In terms of religious literature, in addition to Luther's translation of the German Bible and the King James English Bible, Calvin's Essentials of Christianity and Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer are also regarded as classics. The development of religious literature promoted the prosperity of national literature, and a large number of excellent literary works were published, including great writers such as Rabelais, Shakespeare, Milton and Cervantes.
In terms of art, it formed a baroque art style characterized by luxury and exaggeration. The exquisite decoration of St. Peter's Hall and St. Peter's Square in Rome is the masterpiece of Baroque style master Bernini. Painters such as Rubens and Rembrandt created a large number of paintings expressing religious themes with humanistic techniques. The medieval Catholic Church had hymns for the faithful to sing, but they were not widely used. Protestantism emphasized direct communion between believers and God, and congregation singing played a large part in the liturgy, so hymns were created in large numbers. In the early days of the Reformation, Protestant hymns used Catholic music, and Luther translated Latin hymns into German and composed many hymns himself. The first Protestant hymn book was published in 1524, and by the end of the 16th century, Protestant hymns had formed.
Within the Catholic Church, opposition to Protestantism has often led to conservative narrow-minded views. Because of the fear of heresy, the church demanded theological unity, losing the theological diversity that characterized the early church. Authority was strengthened, and the church became increasingly Roman-centered. At the same time, Catholicism gradually absorbed the positive views of many Protestant reformers, and modern times recognize some contribution of these understandings. The Second Vatican Council made it clear that "the Church is always in need of renewal."
