Martin Luther Dies: Reformer Who Split Christianity

Martin Luther didn't intend to split Christianity. He nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, as an invitation to academic debate, the standard method for proposing scholarly discussion at a university. The theses challenged the sale of indulgences, the practice of buying forgiveness for sins, which had become a major revenue source for the papacy and particularly for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A printer got hold of the theses, translated them from Latin into German, and distributed them across the Holy Roman Empire in weeks. Luther was shocked by the response. What had been intended as a theological argument among scholars became a popular revolt against Church authority. Born in Eisleben, Saxony on November 10, 1483, Luther was the son of a copper smelter who wanted him to become a lawyer. He entered an Augustinian monastery instead, after reportedly being caught in a thunderstorm and vowing to become a monk if he survived. He earned his doctorate in theology at the University of Wittenberg and became increasingly troubled by the gap between Scripture and Church practice. His challenge escalated rapidly. Pope Leo X issued a papal bull in 1520 threatening excommunication. Luther burned it publicly. At the Diet of Worms in 1521, summoned to recant before Emperor Charles V, he reportedly declared: "Here I stand. I can do no other." The actual words are disputed. The defiance is not. He was declared an outlaw and heretic. Frederick the Wise of Saxony hid him in Wartburg Castle, where Luther translated the New Testament into German in eleven weeks, making Scripture directly accessible to ordinary readers for the first time. His translation shaped the modern German language the way the King James Bible shaped English. By the time he died on February 18, 1546, in Eisleben, the same town where he'd been born, half of Europe had followed him out of Rome. The Protestant Reformation he accidentally launched split Christianity permanently, triggered a century of religious wars, and reshaped the political and cultural map of Europe.