Protestantism

Reformation Doctrines of Protestantism Pre-Reformation Movements of the Church of the Reformation Post-reformation movements "The Great Awakening" Restorationism In addition to economic and national oppression, humanism and the changed intellectual environment in Europe served as a prerequisite for the Reformation. The critical spirit of the Renaissance made it possible to take a fresh look at all the phenomena of culture, including religion. The emphasis of the Renaissance on individuality and personal responsibility helped to critically review the church structure, carrying out a kind of revisionism, and the fashion for ancient manuscripts and primary sources drew people's attention to the discrepancy between early Christianity and modern church. People with an awakened mind and a worldly outlook became critical of the religious life of their time in the face of the Catholic Church. Forerunners of the Reformation John Wyclif Economic pressure, multiplied by the infringement of national interests, caused a protest against the Avignon popes in England as early as the 14th century. John Wycliffe, a professor at Oxford University, who proclaimed the need to destroy the entire papal system and secularize the monastic-church land, became the spokesman for the discontent of the masses. Wyclif was disgusted by the "captivity" and schism, and after 1379 began to oppose the dogmatism of the Roman Church with revolutionary ideas. In 1379, he attacked the authority of the pope by expressing in his writings the idea that Christ, and not the pope, was the head of the church. He argued that the Bible, not the church, is the believer's sole authority and that the church should be built in the image of the New Testament. To reinforce his views, Wyclif made the Bible available to people on their mother tongue. By 1382, the first complete translation of the New Testament into English was completed. English language. Nicholas of Herford finished translating most of the Old Testament into English in 1384. Thus, for the first time, the English had the full text of the Bible in their own language. Wyclif went even further and in 1382 spoke out against the dogma of transubstantiation, although the Roman Church believed that the essence of the elements changes with an unchanged external form. Wyclif argued that the substance of the elements remains unchanged, that Christ is spiritually present during this sacrament and is felt by faith. To accept the view of Wyclif meant to recognize that the priest is not in a position to influence the salvation of a person by forbidding him to receive the body and blood of Christ at the Eucharist. And although Wyclif's views were condemned in London and Rome, his teaching on equality in the church was applied to economic life by the peasants and contributed to the peasant uprising of 1381. Students from the Czech Republic who studied in England brought his teachings to their homeland, where it became the basis for the ideas of Jan Hus. The Czech Republic at that time was experiencing the dominance of the German clergy, who sought to acquire plots in the Kuttenber mines. Jan Hus, the pastor of the Bethlehem Chapel, who had studied at the University of Prague and became its rector around 1409, read Wyclif's writings and absorbed his ideas. Hus' sermons came at the time of the rise of the Czech national consciousness, which opposed the power of the Holy Roman Empire in the Czech Republic. Hus proposed a reform of the church in Bohemia similar to that proclaimed by Wyclif. In an effort to stop popular discontent, Emperor Sigismund I and Pope Martin V initiated a church council in Konstanz, at which Jan Hus and his associate Jerome of Prague were proclaimed heretics and burned at the stake. John Wyclif was also declared a heretic. Lutheran Reformation Reformation in Germany Beginning of the Reformation in Germany In Germany, which at the beginning 16th century still remained a politically fragmented state, almost all classes shared dissatisfaction with the church: the peasants were ruined by church tithes and posthumous requisitions, the products of artisans could not compete with the products of monasteries, which were not taxed, the church expanded its land holdings in cities, threatening to turn the townspeople into lifelong debtors . All this, as well as the huge sums of money that the Vatican exported from Germany, and the moral decay of the clergy, was the reason for the speech of Martin Luther, who October 31 1517 nailed to the doors of the Wittenberg Castle Church his "95 theses". In them, the doctor of divinity opposed the sale of indulgences and the power of the Pope to absolve sins. In the teaching he preached, he proclaimed that the church and the clergy are not mediators between man and God. He declared false the claims of the papal church that it can give people through the sacraments "remission of sins" and "salvation of the soul" by virtue of special powers from God with which it is allegedly endowed. The basic proposition put forward by Luther was that a person achieves "salvation of the soul" (or "justification") not through the church and its rites, but with the help of faith given to him directly by God. During this time, Luther had good reason to hope for the realization of his idea of ​​"spiritual rebellion": the imperial government, contrary to the papal bull of 1520 and the Edict of Worms of 1521, did not prohibit reformist "innovations" completely and irrevocably, postponing the final decision to the future Reichstag or church cathedral. The convened Reichstags postponed the consideration of the case until the convening of a church council, only forbidding Luther to print new books. However, following the movement of a radical burgher group, accompanied by spontaneous actions of the masses, the performance of imperial chivalry took place in the country. In 1523, part of the knights, led by Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen, dissatisfied with their position in the empire, revolted, proclaiming themselves the successors of the Reformation. Hutten saw the tasks of the movement raised by the Reformation in preparing the entire German people for such a war, which would lead to the rise of chivalry and its transformation into a dominant political force in the empire liberated from Roman domination. Very quickly, the knightly uprising was suppressed, but it showed that Luther's aspirations to come to the Reformation by peaceful means would no longer be realized. Evidence of this was the Peasants' War that broke out soon, led by Thomas Müntzer. The Peasants' War by Thomas Müntzer The peasant war was the result of the peasant masses interpreting the ideas of the Reformation as a call for social transformation. In many ways, these sentiments were promoted by the teachings of Thomas Müntzer, who in his sermons called for rebellion, a socio-political upheaval. However, the inability of the peasant masses and the burghers to unite in a joint struggle led to defeat in the war. After the Augsburg Reichstag, the defensive Schmalkaldic League began to form by the Protestant princes, inspired by the creation of which was Philip, Landgrave of Hesse. Reformation in Germany after Luther's death Immediately after Luther's death, the Protestants in Germany faced a severe test. Having won a number of victories over the Turks and the French, Emperor Charles V decided to take up internal affairs. Having entered into an alliance with the pope and William of Bavaria, he sent his troops to the lands of the princes participating in the Schmalkaldic League. As a result of the Schmalkalden War that followed, the Protestant troops were defeated, in 1547 the emperor's troops captured Wittenberg, which for almost 30 years had been the unofficial capital of the Protestant world (Luther's grave was not looted by order of the emperor), and the Elector of Saxony Johann-Friedrich and Landgrave Philip was in prison. As a result, at the Reichstag in Augsburg on May 15, 1548, an interim was announced - an agreement between Catholics and Protestants, according to which the Protestants were forced to make significant concessions. However, Karl failed to implement the plan: Protestantism managed to take deep roots on German soil and had long been a religion not only of princes and merchants, but also of peasants and miners, as a result of which interim met with stubborn resistance. Reformation in Denmark and Norway At the request of King Christian, Melanchthon sent an experienced reforming priest Johannes Bugenhagen to Denmark, who led the implementation of the Reformation in the country. As a result, the Reformation in Denmark was guided by German models. According to Danish historians, "Denmark, with the introduction of the Lutheran Church, became a German province in church terms for a long time." In 1537, by decree of the king, a commission was created from "learned people" to develop a code for a new church, which included Hans Tausen. Luther was familiarized with the drafted code, and with his approval, in September of the same year, a new church law was approved. Reformation in Sweden and Finland Triumph of Gustav Vasa. Woman in yellow dress - Catholic Church In 1527, at the Vesteros Riksdag, the king was proclaimed head of the Church, and the property of the monasteries was confiscated in favor of the crown. The affairs of the Church began to be managed by secular persons appointed by the king. In 1531 Olaus' brother Lavrentius became archbishop of Sweden. Under his leadership, in 1536, a Church Council was held in Uppsala, at which Lutheran church books were recognized as mandatory for all of Sweden. Celibacy has been abolished. In 1571 Lavrenty Petri developed "Swedish church charter", which defined the organizational structure and nature of the self-governing Church of Sweden. Pastors and laity were given the opportunity to choose bishops, but the final approval of candidates became the prerogative of the king. At the same time, it should be noted that due to the absence of a fierce confrontation between Roman Catholics and adherents of the Reformation that took place in the countries of Central Europe, the differences in the external nature of the services of the reformed and the Roman Catholic Church were minimal. Therefore, the Swedish rite is considered to be a model of high church tradition in Lutheranism. It is also formally considered that the Church of Sweden has Apostolic Succession, so Lavrenty Petri was ordained a bishop by Peter Magnusson, Bishop of Vasteras, who was ordained in Rome. The Reformation was also carried out in Finland, which at that time was claimed to be part of the Kingdom of Sweden. The first Lutheran bishop in Finland (in Åbo) was Mikael Agricola, who compiled the first primer of the Finnish language and translated the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament into Finnish. Reformation in the Baltics The reformation in the Baltics began with the lands of the Teutonic Order. In 1511, Albrecht of Brandenburg was chosen as its grandmaster. He tried to pursue a policy independent of Poland, as a result of which in 1519 the Poles devastated all of Prussia. Then Albrecht decided to take advantage of the spread of the Reformation in Prussia, in 1525 he secularized the order and received it from the Polish king in fief as a duchy. The German emperor deposed Albrecht, the pope excommunicated him from the church, but Albrecht did not give up his cause. Reformation processes affected the lands of the Livonian Confederation quite early. As early as the 1520s, Luther's students Johann Bugenhagen, Andreas Knopcken and Sylvester Tegetmeyer performed here. Dorpat's reformer was Melchior Hoffman. Their sermons found a lively response both among the nobles and among the burghers and the urban poor. As a result, in 1523-1524. the main Catholic churches in Tallinn and Riga were destroyed and the Catholic clergy expelled. Parts of the Bible were translated into Latvian by Nikolaus Ramm. In 1539 Riga became part of the Protestant cities. The Landtag in Valmiera in 1554 proclaimed the freedom of belief, which actually meant the victory of Lutheranism. But the triumph of one or another creed in various parts of the former Livonian Confederation was largely due to who they began to belong to after the Livonian War. Anabaptists After the defeat in the Peasants' War, the Anabaptists did not show themselves openly for a long time. Nevertheless, their teaching was quite successfully spread, and not only among peasants and artisans. In the early 1930s, a large number of them were in West Germany. John of Leiden at the baptism of girls Calvinist Reformation Reformation in Switzerland A situation similar to the German one also developed in Switzerland, where the authority of the Catholic Church fell due to the abuses, debauchery and ignorance of the clergy. The monopoly position of the church in the field of ideology was also undermined by the successes of secular education and humanism. However, here, in Switzerland, purely political prerequisites were added to the ideological prerequisites: the local burghers sought to turn the confederation of cantons independent of each other into a federation, secularize church lands, and prohibit military mercenarism, which distracted workers from production. However, such sentiments prevailed only in the so-called urban cantons of the country, where capitalist relations had already been born. In the more conservative forest cantons, friendly relations were maintained with the Catholic Monarchies of Europe, whose armies they supplied with mercenaries. The close connection of political and ideological protest gave rise to the Reformation movement in Switzerland, the most prominent representatives of which were made in remembrance of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. While Luther was making an alliance with the princes, Zwingli was a supporter of republicanism, an accuser of the tyranny of monarchs and princes. Zwingli's ideas became widespread in Switzerland during his lifetime, but after the death of the reformer they were gradually supplanted by Calvinism and other currents of Protestantism. The core position of the teachings of John Calvin was the doctrine of "universal predestination", according to which God has ordained for each person his fate: one - eternal damnation and sorrow, the other, the elect - eternal salvation and bliss. It is not given to a person to change his fate, he is only able to believe in his chosenness, applying all his diligence and energy to achieve success in worldly life. Calvin affirmed the spiritual nature of the sacrament, believed that only the elect receive God's grace when it is performed. Calvin's ideas spread throughout Switzerland and beyond, serving as the basis for the Reformation in England and the Dutch Revolution. Reformation in Scotland In Scotland, the initial manifestation of Luther's ideas was brutally suppressed: Parliament tried to ban the circulation of his books. However, this attempt was largely unsuccessful. And only the decisive influence of the political factor (the Scottish lords, by supporting English Protestantism, hoped to get rid of French influence) legitimized the Reformation. Reformation in the Netherlands The main prerequisites for the Reformation in the Netherlands were determined, as in other European countries, by a combination of socio-economic, political, cultural changes with growing dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church in different sectors of society - its privileges, wealth, extortions, ignorance and immorality of the clergy. An important role in the dissemination of reform ideas was also played by the opposition to the policy pursued by the government, which severely persecuted dissidents, to the point of equating heretical views with a crime against the state. J. Lefebvre d'Etaplem and G. Brisonnet (bishop of Meaux). In the 20-30s of the 16th century, Lutheranism and Anabaptism became widespread among the wealthy townspeople and the plebeian masses. A new upsurge of the reform movement, but in the form of Calvinism, dates back to the 40s and 50s. Calvinism was in France the ideological banner of both the social protest of the plebeians and the emerging bourgeoisie against feudal exploitation, and the opposition of the reactionary-separatist feudal aristocracy to the growing royal absolutism; the latter, in order to strengthen his power, used in France not the reformation, but Catholicism, asserting at the same time the independence of the French Catholic Church from the papal throne (royal Gallicanism). The opposition of various layers to absolutism resulted in the so-called Wars of Religion, which ended with the victory of royal absolutism and Catholicism. Reformation in England The Reformation in England, unlike other countries, was carried out "from above", at the behest of the monarch Henry VIII, who thus tried to break with the pope and the Vatican, and also to strengthen his absolute power. Under Elizabeth I, the final version of the Anglican creed (the so-called "39 Articles") was compiled. The "39 Articles" also recognized the Protestant dogmas about justification by faith, about the Holy Scriptures as the only source of faith, and the Catholic dogma about the single-saving power of the Church (with some reservations). The church became national and became an important pillar of absolutism, it was headed by the king, and the clergy were subordinate to him as part of the state apparatus of the absolutist monarchy. The service was performed in English. The teaching of the Catholic Church about indulgences, about the veneration of icons and relics was rejected, the number of holidays was reduced. At the same time, the sacraments of baptism and communion were recognized, the church hierarchy was preserved, as well as the liturgy and magnificent cult characteristic of the Catholic Church. As before, tithes were collected, which began to flow in favor of the king and the new owners of the monastery lands. Russia and the Reformation There was no Reformation as such in Russia. Nevertheless, due to close contacts with the states of Central Europe, as well as military clashes, craftsmen began to appear in Russia, as well as prisoners of war who were allowed to practice their faith by the Russian tsars. The most massive resettlement occurred during the Livonian War, during which not only artisans, but even hierarchs of the Lutheran Church fell deep into the Russian Kingdom. Thus, the bishop of the city of Abo, the Finnish reformer Mikael Agricola, traveled to Moscow as part of an embassy. In the poetic "Statement on Luthors" by the Moscow scribe Ivan Nasedka, based on the experience of the polemical writings of the Ukrainian Zakharia Kopystensky. With the Protestant influence, a number of researchers associate the activities of Peter I to transform the Russian Orthodox Church (the abolition of the patriarchate with the subordination of the church to secular power, restrictions on monasticism). However, very exotic personalities were periodically attributed to Lutherans in Russia. The Old Believer book "Russian Grapes" tells about a certain Vavila, famous for his ascetic exploits and burned in 1666: but by many .. good and well-known to speak. ” counter-reformation, then internally these were processes that can be called a reformation in the Catholic Church itself. Paul IV (a member of the commission of Paul III) expelled 113 bishops from Rome who illegally left their dioceses, during which hundreds of monks were sent back to their monasteries. Even cardinals suspected of immorality were persecuted. In addition, monastic orders of a new type were established - Theatines, Capuchins, Ursulines and Jesuits. The latter engaged in active propaganda of Catholicism both in Protestant countries and in territories where before that there were no Christian missionaries at all. When joining the order, the Jesuit took the oath not only to the general, but also to the pope himself. Largely thanks to the activities of the Jesuits, it was possible to return the Commonwealth to the Catholic Church. Results of the Reformation The results of the reform movement cannot be characterized unambiguously. On the one hand, the Catholic world, which united all the peoples of Western Europe under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, ceased to exist. United Catholic Church was replaced by many national churches, which were often dependent on secular rulers, whereas before the clergy could appeal to the pope as an arbiter. On the other hand, national churches contributed to the growth of the national consciousness of the peoples of Europe. At the same time, the cultural and educational level of the inhabitants of Northern Europe, which had previously been, as it were, the outskirts of the Christian World, increased significantly - the need to study the Bible led to an increase in both initial educational institutions(mainly in the form of parochial schools) and higher, which resulted in the creation of universities to train national churches. For some languages, writing was specially developed in order to be able to publish the Bible in them. The proclamation of spiritual equality stimulated the development of ideas about political equality. So, in countries where the majority were Reformed, the laity had great opportunities in managing the church, and citizens - in managing the state. The main achievement of the Reformation was that it significantly contributed to the change of old feudal economic relations to new capitalist ones. The desire for economy, for the development of industry, for the rejection of expensive entertainment (as well as expensive worship services) contributed to the accumulation of capital, which was invested in trade and production. As a result, Protestant states began to outpace economic development Catholic and Orthodox. Even the Protestant ethic itself contributed to the development of the economy.

In the middle of the last millennium, Europe was shaken by events that changed the entire course of history. Serious changes in the foundations of the medieval Pax christiana - "Christianity" - affected not only the way of life of people, but also the image of God. In these changes, a different human type was born, the understanding of the purpose of a person and the meaning of his life changed. New time began, "our time" for the generations who created a modern society with its market economy, technology, democracy, a new faith - in progress and science, freedom and reason. The stronghold of this faith was Protestantism, born in the 95 theses of Dr. Martin Luther.

Timeline of the Reformation
November 10, 1483 Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony
January 1, 1484 Ulrich Zwingli was born in Wildhaus
1505— Luther is tonsured at the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt
July 10, 1509 John Calvin was born in Noyon (Picardy)
1512 Luther visits Rome begins lecturing on the Bible in Wittenberg
1515- publication of "Letters from dark people", ridiculing the Cologne Dominicans
October 31, 1517— Luther hangs his 95 Theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg
1519— Zwingli begins public sermons
1519- Luther's ideas were condemned at the University of Cologne and Louvain
1520 Luther's ideas were condemned at the University of Paris. The papal bull Exsurge Domine threatens Luther with excommunication. He publishes three reformatory treatises and publicly burns a papal bull
1521— Philip Melanchthon publishes the first edition of the Loci Communes (Common Places), destined to become the "standard" for Lutheran theological work. Reichstag of Worms. Luther is outlawed, Frederick the Wise grants him asylum in the Wartburg
1522— unrest in Wittenberg. Return of Luther. Publication of the German translation of the New Testament
1524- Beginning of the Peasants' War in Germany
1525- Zwingli's Commentary on True and False Religion. Luther marries former nun Katharina von Bora
1528- Bern accepts the Zwinglian Reformation, mass is canceled
1531- North German princes found the Schmalkaldic League in defense of Protestantism. Zwingli dies at the Battle of Kappel
1534- Established the "Society of Jesus" - the order of the Jesuits. Start of the Counter-Reformation
1539- Volume 1 of Luther's Complete Works published February 18
1546 Luther died
1555- The Peace of Augsburg consolidates the territorial and religious division of the Holy Roman Empire between Protestants and Catholics

A priest from Wittenberg told the participants of the Imperial Reichstag in Worms: “Unless Scripture and simple reason convince me otherwise, I do not accept the authority of the popes and the church council, because they contradict each other, but my conscience is in captivity only to the Word of God. I cannot and will not publicly renounce anything, for going against my own conscience is equally wrong and unsafe. Help me God. Amen". He left the meeting, already at the door saying: "I'm finished." Fortunately, Luther was wrong, but - tactically: the stubborn was not taken into custody right at the exit only because he had previously (and recklessly, from the point of view of the “judges”) been issued an imperial “letter of safe passage” - the so-called Schutzbrief. It guaranteed the bearer 21 days of complete immunity from persecution throughout divided Germany. On April 25, 1521, Dr. Luther went home to Wittenberg.

But, of course, "winning" 21 days did not decide anything for the rebel, especially since immediately after the events in Worms, Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, issued a decree outlawing him: Luther had the right to kill anyone who wished, without fear legal retribution. The participants in the events froze for several weeks in anticipation: what will become of the stubborn after the “Worms scandal”? .. The completely unforeseen happened: “dashing people” intervened. On the way "to the place of permanent residence" the disgraced monk ... was kidnapped. The companions saw how unknown masked riders repelled him from the procession and took him away over a nearby ridge of hills. Luther is gone. But soon in the Wartburg castle, which belonged to the Elector (Elector) of Saxony Frederick III, a certain junker (“young nobleman”) Jorg appeared and gradually began to acquire a black beard. He was known as a man of books, he wrote something all day long. The Reformation stood still for a while, only to roll on, less than a year later, accelerating and gaining momentum, armed with a translation of the Gospels into German, which was the work of the Protestant leader in the Wartburg. This in itself was a challenge: a year before the end of the 12th century, Pope Innocent III, in the wake of the Cathar and Waldensian heresies, banned "unauthorized" translations of Scripture other than the Latin Vulgate compiled by Saint Jerome in 382-405.

The astonishingly rapid success of Luther and the Reformation is due in no small part to economic reasons: the harsh exactions in favor of the Roman Curia, which most European countries have long complained to no avail. The demands for the reform of the church in capite et in membris (“in relation to the head and members”) sounded louder and louder: in 1309, the Popes of Rome were held captive by Philip IV in French Avignon for almost 70 years. This happened because the secular and spiritual authorities did not share influence and prerogatives. The capture was followed by the so-called "Great Western Schism" - a split between the Avignon and Roman pontiffs. The Schism began in 1378 and ended only at the Council of Constance (1414-1418), where reforms were promised but were immediately forgotten as soon as Rome consolidated its power. And there came the turn of the “Renaissance popes” of the 15th century, to whom earthly pleasures were not alien (how not to recall Alexander VI - Rodrigo Borgia and Leo X - Giovanni Medici). Priests sometimes also did not differ in fortitude, and monasticism in that era fell into a noticeable decline.

And yet - medieval theology was rapidly losing its attractiveness, while criticism of religion led to the collapse of the entire medieval world of ideas and beliefs. The Reformation was also helped by the fact that the new church, ready to accept full control from the secular authorities, received the support of governments that smoothly turned religious problems into national and political ones, fixing them by law or force - as in England, Zurich, Geneva

Plato, with his doctrine of ideas as functioning logical concepts, again replaced Aristotle, whose ideas Thomas Aquinas and representatives of the scholastic tradition combined with the revelations of Holy Scripture. Under these conditions, the rebellion against the religious domination of Rome was simply bound to succeed.

Monument to the Swiss Fathers of the Reformation erected in Geneva in 1917

Contemporaries, but not associates
The second center of the Reformation after Wittenberg was Zurich, where the Swiss church and political figure, son of a village headman and educated humanist Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531). His ideas in many ways differed from Luther's in a radical direction (especially on the question of the need for church service in general), but the goals of the Lutherans and Zwinglians at first coincided. The preacher, who expressed the interests of the Zurich burghers, quickly gained strength in municipal battles and literally crushed the city magistrate, who, under his “dictation”, issued a number of anti-Roman acts and, in the end, completely banned Catholic worship in the city.

The French-speaking cantons of the country, headed in Geneva by John Calvin (1509-1564), at first a modest representative of the community of French settlers, did not lag behind. Calvinism was distinguished by even more rigid forms of doctrine, regulating the entire domestic and social life of a citizen. It is literally about the complete fusion of religious practice with daily existence. The word of the master was considered in Geneva in the 1540s to be the ultimate truth, no discrepancies or objections were allowed. The priests were expelled, and the laity were forced to visit new prayer houses.

Who are you Western Christians with?

When, in 1517, a Catholic monk from Thuringia named Martin Luther, distinguished by extreme religious zeal, first spoke out against the sale of indulgences, he only wanted to correct and strengthen the Universal Church, to recall the gospel ideal of poverty, the purity of the early Christian community. However, the private question he raised unexpectedly vividly interested people of various classes. And very soon the logic of the struggle led the thinker to a break with the papacy. The papal bull Exsurge Domine of 15 June 1520 declared 41 of Luther's 95 theses "heretical". The next bull, dated January 3, 1521, gave him 60 days to recant his delusions - under pain of excommunication and burning of all previously published works. Instead, the Wittenberg monk, against the general expectation, without blinking an eye, declared the pope the Antichrist: after all, he who claims to be the only possible interpretation of Scripture and refuses any reforms goes against God. As a result of the conflict, the “exchange of auto-da-fe” followed, then the excommunication of the heretic promised by Rome. So, in 1520 the lot was cast. Every Western Christian now had to decide - with whom he was, with the reformers or "traditionalists"?

It was then that the division of the Christian era so familiar today into the “darkness of the Middle Ages” and the “light of the New Age” was born, and precisely in connection with the belief in the imminence of the onset of a fundamentally different era. The core of this belief, the driving force behind this first of the great European revolutions, was a mighty impulse towards a general "reorganization" of life. Both Renaissance humanists like Boccaccio or Rabelais and Lutheran religious reformers felt that after centuries of barbarism and superstition, the time had come for humanity to finally be reborn. It is another matter that the former were looking for role models in synthesis with classical antiquity, while the latter looked only in the apostolic era. But the results of their efforts went far beyond what was originally desired: the church (at least in Northern Europe) completely lost practical control over the life of society, in a significant part of Western countries a new, bourgeois culture developed, which no one dreamed of and no one foresaw. . Religion has become the subject of intellectual criticism and political manipulation. In the center of the Old World, the Thirty Years' "War of Faiths" (1618-1648) flared up on an unprecedented scale - the first conflict that in one way or another affected almost all European countries, and therefore most of the ecumene known under Luther. The war was the logical conclusion of the split in Europe caused by the Reformation.

"Master over all things"

The Wittenberg doctor of theology proclaimed: the main question of being is the question of the relationship between faith and "good deeds." And he himself answered it unequivocally: for Protestants, only the first is essential—the veneration of God alone; and as for good deeds, they, they say, are generated only by faith. The power of the pope, according to the reformers (at first, when they still recognized it), is very limited. Forgiveness of guilt is the prerogative of the Lord alone, and therefore selling "forms of absolution" for the salvation of the soul is a perversion of the idea of ​​Divine mercy. Repentance for a Christian is the deepest experience: it is not limited even to the corresponding sacrament, but must turn his whole life upside down.

Even the father of the Reformation spoke out against the claims of the Roman throne to dominance in secular life (there was a belief that spiritual power was a priori higher than secular). He demanded independence for the German church, the abolition of celibacy (celibacy) for priests, and the recognition as sacraments of only two (established by Jesus himself) - baptism and communion. In general, fundamental changes in the doctrine were intended to provide a return to the days of the apostolic preaching. According to Luther, a Christian is “a free lord over all things and is not subject to anyone” when it comes to his faith, about the “inner man”, but “a ready-to-serve slave of all things and is subject to everyone” when it comes to about the outward manifestations of his life. But the main principle is “only Christ” as opposed to a host of “official mediators” between man and God. Not by the institutions prescribed by the church, but by the “mere grace” of the Lord, one can achieve the salvation of the soul.

Naturally, such reasoning inevitably led to a denial of the infallibility of the pontiff and councils. In Rome, and in the episcopates of Germany itself, all this could not but cause rejection. Ahead of believers were waiting for centuries of disunity and deadly hatred. Only in the 20th century will Catholics and Protestants again try to move towards each other. In the meantime ... While the new teaching was gaining followers. First of all, in Germany.

Germany became both the birthplace of the Reformation and its main center, of course, not by accident, although in a certain sense this movement was anticipated by the French early medieval heresies and the activities of Jan Hus (1371-1415) in Bohemia. The fact is that by the first quarter of the 16th century, the secular power of Rome was already pretty tired even of the big barons, who, according to “class logic”, were by no means supposed to support cardinal social changes.

Meanwhile, German life became more and more "complicated". In Wittenberg (and this is only with two thousand permanent and poor residents) a university was established in 1502 - very close to the prince's castle - it was in it, according to Shakespeare, that Prince Hamlet studied. Dr. Martin himself, in turn, held the position of both the priest of the Castle Church and the university professor, and the same Saxon ruler Frederick the Wise, who later saved the father of the Reformation from death after Worms, owned the feudal fortress.

What were the thoughts of the disturber of European tranquility then busy with? In his declining years, referring to his own experience, he wrote: "Despair makes a monk." Most likely, this despair was not associated with any specific tragic events, but was purely existential in nature. At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, the entire burghers were suffering from what we today would call social insecurity, despondency and apathy. In the collective consciousness of the era, there was a premonition of the near end of the world. The favorite song of that time is the lament “Among life we ​​find ourselves in death” by Notker Zaika. The favorite engraving that adorned the walls of houses and workshops is Dürer's "Four Horsemen" from the "Apocalypse" series, dressed in costumes of "feudal predators" - the emperor, pope, bishop and knight. In general, the famous Dutch culturologist Johan Huizinga characterizes the spiritual atmosphere of the pre-reformation times as follows: different kind diplomas - everywhere there remains the same impression of endless sadness. It may seem as if this era was incomparably unhappy and knew only strife, mortal hatred, envy, rudeness and poverty ... The call memento mori (remember death) permeated her entire existence.

Meanwhile, against this gloomy background, the economic life of the country in the era of Luther's youth suddenly began to rise. German fairs, commercial offices and banks became famous throughout Europe, the acumen and skill of German merchants became proverbial. Naturally, according to the universal laws of the economy, such development was accompanied by a rapid decomposition of the old, patriarchal ways of managing. Hence - the growth of direct contradictions, violence on the roads and in the villages, theft, venality of princes and judges, in general, everything that is commonly called a decline in morals. Hence also the passionate condemnation by the rank and file of "serving mammon", by which they meant, first of all, feudal greed. The townspeople, who were getting rich slowly, for obvious reasons, did not quite accept such an uncompromising condemnation of the thirst for profit, however, they were against the unreasonable money-grubbing of the nobles. Their covetousness, rampant drunkenness and arbitrariness drove respectable bourgeois to despair. “Our gentlemen,” says Luther in 1525, “they see guilders in every grain and straw,” and therefore become “merciless, like landsknechts, and cunning, like usurers.”

So, the emerging German " middle class"Unconsciously longed for the moral exaltation of honest private enterprise, the confidence that it is no less worthy than military or bureaucratic service, that God favors thrifty and conscientious businessmen, and condemns only acquisitiveness devoid of moral restrictions. But what to do if such conclusions are impossible within the framework of the Catholic canon? After all, the medieval worldview put an indelible stamp of sin on trade and entrepreneurship. Luther endured this conflict within himself and found the means to resolve it.

After the “kidnapping” of the Wittenberg rebel by the elector, support for new ideas expanded in his homeland, and colleagues at the university fussed with the imperial princes. After all, a monk who was excommunicated from the church and himself rejected monastic vows (1525), could not participate in public theological disputes with Catholics, and here his associates badly needed him. During the absence of the teacher, this duty was taken over by his associate, the humanist theologian and systematist of Lutheranism, Philip Melanchthon. Both Melanchthon and the even more "extremist" Andreas Karlstadt were in favor of change. Yes, they performed - they carried them out! Even before the return of Luther, the parishioners began to take communion not only with bread, but also with wine - in contrast to the Catholics, in whom only the priest was applied to the cup. The exodus of monks from the monasteries began, the clergy entered into marriages. The father of the reform at one time even undertook to think - do they have the right to do so? It turned out, it seems like they have ...

On the Convenience of Unburdening Faith

Adherents of Protestantism were not distinguished by particular legibility in the methods of its dissemination. How did they act? Loudly, sometimes hysterically, Catholics were accused of real and imaginary sins. They overthrew, not particularly caring about creation. They selected the souls of people who were ready to support everything that promised change, and - at least at first - did not offer them anything intelligible, except for the rejection of tradition. The hatred for Rome and the cardinals, fueled by endless complaints about the outrageousness of the priests, “went” well. Such artillery preparation greatly helped the success of the Reformation. The most important religious principles were sent to the dustbin of history along with abuses.

In addition, innovators successfully used the conflicts that arose everywhere between secular and clergy, between clergy and parishioners, between bishops and cities, between monasteries and princes. Depriving the clergy of influence on the everyday life of society, the reformers supported the feudal lords and cities in their desire to finally end the long-standing disputes in their favor. An absolutely new organization of believers, freed from political pretensions, came in handy here. The reformed priesthood possessed only those rights which were granted to it by the civil authorities. The reformed national church of the North German lands entered into complete subordination to the civil rulers, and the innovators of the faith who entrusted themselves to their authority could no longer leave this "service", even if they wanted to.

Finally, the reformers successfully appealed to purely human emotions, the movements of souls. The ideas promoted by Luther's followers - freedom of thought, the right of everyone to base their faith only on the Bible - were extremely attractive. The abolition of mechanisms designed to keep sinful human nature in check (confession, penance, fasting, abstinence and vows) attracted those who were tired of unnecessarily fettering themselves. Indeed, why pacify the flesh when it is enough just to believe and sing hymns in the native language! The war against ecclesiastical orders, celibacy, and monastic abstinence—Christian lofty living practices—brought to the Reformation those who preferred "an easy faith." The confiscation of the property of the monasteries also helped a lot: it was used for material support of former monks and nuns, priests-“rasstrig”. Endless pamphlets abounded, playing on the basest feelings. The Pope, the Roman Curia, in general, all those who remained in line with Catholicism in the lands of the victorious Reformation were subjected to ridicule, and the language of the doctrine was subjected to distortion and mockery. All this found, as they said earlier, "a lively response among the masses."

"Whose land is faith"

Ironically, many bishops were at first indifferent to reformist sentiment, and this gave the Protestant leaders time to turn around. Even much later than the promulgation of the Wittenberg theses, a number of church fathers, remaining, of course, true to their convictions, did not show the strength and desire to adequately respond to the challenge of the "heretics". The same could be said of the parish priests, many of whom were also rather ignorant and apathetic, in stark contrast to the zeal of the new preachers. The latter easily found a common language with "rude souls", alien to the written word and supportive of their own weaknesses.

Many new orders flattered a primitive sense of collectivism: the communion cup was taken by the whole congregation, chants became collective. What about reading from the Bible, and rejecting the basic difference between clergy and laity? Everyone could be "like everyone else." We also include here the same attractive doctrine of justification by faith alone (regardless of good deeds), the denial of free will, which justifies moral "flaws", and the universal priesthood, which seemed to directly provide everyone with a share of "priestly" and administrative-church functions.

And, finally, one of the main driving forces of the Reformation was the direct violence of the authorities interested in the redistribution of property. Priests who persisted in Catholicism were expelled from the Protestant areas and replaced by adherents of the new doctrine, parishioners were forced to attend their services. It got to the point that in many places people and entire parishes were no longer allowed into the church: Calvinist Geneva was especially famous for such decisiveness, where a dissident could be burned, as, for example, it happened in 1553 with the Spanish doctor Miguel Servet, a notorious false teacher and heretic, who denied the doctrine of the Trinity. The history of the Reformation shows that civil institutions were one of the main factors in its spread everywhere: not religious, but dynastic, political and social factors were often decisive. Faith was received according to the principle "Cuius regio, eius religio" - "Whose land, that is faith"

The fire of the Reformation quickly engulfed all of Europe. It is known, after all, that any ideas and slogans are instantly snapped up by those to whom they are beneficial at one time or another: "There is a merchant for every commodity." For example, in France in the 20-30s of the 16th century, Lutheranism and Anabaptism (a radical reformist movement that advocated secondary, conscious baptism in adulthood, denied the church hierarchy, sacraments and did not allow its adherents to pay taxes or serve in troops) became very popular. Calvinism, with its harsh political rhetoric, also “pulled itself up” when the time came for the uncompromising struggle of the separatist feudal lords against the growing strength of French absolutism, which, after all, relied on traditional Catholicism. The cruel knot of these contradictions, described in many well-known literary works, turned out to be partly cut only by the long knives of the St. Bartholomew night in Paris (August 24, 1572), which became the culmination of the Huguenot wars and after 30 years "dictated" to the former Protestant Henry IV of Navarre the phrase that that "Paris is worth a mass".

Meanwhile, already from the second decade of the 16th century, that is, from the very beginning of the Reformation, in her homeland, centrifugal tendencies, successfully overcome in France, won. The Peasant War broke out in the Black Forest and soon engulfed all of Southwestern and Central Germany. From circles close to the radical religious and rebel leader Thomas Müntzer, the so-called “Article Letter” (Artikelbrief) came into the world, full of slogans: freedom for “poor and ordinary people” - from any authorities and masters! Reorganize life on the principles of "common good" and "divine right"!.. It is not surprising that the burghers rushed in the opposite direction from the rebels - into the arms of "specific" princes and tribal nobility, which, in turn, readily appropriated it - on the wave of Lutheran propaganda - alienated property of the church. As a result, the movement of the peasants was suppressed by common efforts, but the Peace of Augsburg, concluded between the Protestant and Catholic barons in 1555, gave only a short respite: the beginning of the 17th century brought the Germans the already mentioned Thirty Years War. The fatherland of Martin Luther has already emerged from it completely exhausted: the Holy Roman Empire has forever lost its leading political position on the continent.

From Calvinists to Quakers

As you know, any social protest in the Middle Ages was clothed in a religious form. But these centuries were coming to an end: the Reformation was the last such movement. The Age of Enlightenment, imbued with the spirit of skepticism, was interested in religion only from the point of view from which it could be debunked. However, the West preserved some purely “reformation” values ​​forever: the significance of the Word was established in the cult as opposed to the Image, and the sermon took the place of the liturgy in the minds.

The Roman Church from the very beginning resisted the trends that were contrary to it. Thirty years after the promulgation of Luther's theses, the Council of Trent condemned his ideas. And the great Roman pontiffs Paul III, Pius V and Sixtus V quickly found a common language with the Catholic Monarchs, primarily with Philip II of Spain, with the Bavarian dukes and with Emperor Ferdinand II. The Inquisition was strengthened (in 1542, its Holy Office appeared in Rome), an Index of Forbidden Books was compiled. The disorganized German monastic orders were replaced by new ones - the orders of the Capuchins (1525) and the Jesuits (1534). Catholicism survived. However, despite the measures taken, Luther's ideas even reached the main strongholds of Catholicism - Spain and Italy. It was believed, for example, that Spanish Protestants were the most refined. However, this trend of the intelligentsia curtailed by the 1560s.

In the meantime, in places where Protestantism was firmly established, its theoretical base was developing - the Mennonites came after the Calvinists (including the Huguenots) - supporters of the "revolutionary" Anabaptist Menno Simons (died in 1561). Then came the turn of the Methodist, Quaker, Pentecostal and other movements that grew out of the ideas of revivalism - "religious revival". The latter called for a return not only to the ideals of early Christianity, but also ... to the "pure", original Reformation.

The conductors of Protestantism in the bourgeois age and, speaking geopolitically, in America, were the Netherlands and England, the most economically developed countries of Europe in the 16th century. The slogans of Calvinism were written on the banners of the Dutch War of Liberation (1566-1609), supported by the bourgeoisie and nobility who opposed Spain, by peasants and the urban poor. England of the 16th century, having once entered into a confrontation with Rome, also did not come out of it. In accordance with the act of 1534 on the supremacy (supremacy), the king became the head of the Anglican church. The English Reformation was “launched from above” and therefore had its own characteristics: it retained Catholic ritual, the episcopate, church possessions ... This situation led to a crafty philosophical snag: all attempts to resist the “excesses” of English absolutism implied a fight against official religion. As a result, it soon lost its appeal to independent-minded people, and they rushed into the arms of local Calvinism - Puritanism and its newfangled varieties - Presbyterianism and Levellerism. The turbulent events of the English Revolution followed, but when the "rebellious" lining under Calvinism dried up, only the "good old" national church survived.

But on the new, American shores, the doctrine of the reformers found fertile ground. It was in the USA that the offshoots of the young religion flourished: Congregationalism (“invested” in American science by founding Harvard), Quakerism, Baptism, Methodism (its “religious salesmen” delivered religion directly to the homes of parishioners). And new ones arose: Adventism, Mormonism, universalism, Unitarianism... It was Protestantism that nourished classical German philosophy, and through it influenced Russia with its Westernizers and neo-Kantians - it is not for nothing that the modern philosopher Golosovker connected Dostoevsky with the "restless old man" in his study of the "mysterious Russian soul" Immanuel" in the book "Kant and Dostoevsky".

Protestant countries are the most economically developed - stable democratic regimes are supported by this mobile and living version of Christianity. The "Lutheran Rose" has taken root.

Victor Garaja, Doctor of Philosophy

By the end of the XV century. the condition of the Western Church was very sad. Some popes, such as Alexander VI (Borgia), led a noisy social life, far from the Christian ideal. The bishops were for the most part wealthy landowners who were not involved in the life of their dioceses, often did not know theology and almost never performed divine services. Despite the strictest prohibition, the highest church positions were often sold. Canons (parish trustees) were, for the most part, laymen who held clerical positions only for the sake of deriving income from churches. The lower clergy lived very poorly and were oppressed. The people were in spiritual darkness and superstition. The Christian ideal was mainly preserved only by some monastic orders.

Against the background of such a spiritual state of the Church in Western Europe, a movement called “humanism” was widespread, which based human being freedom of mind and personality and preached a return to classical antiquity.

Of the humanists of this era, the famous scientist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467 - 1536) was an outstanding church educator. He was an ardent supporter of the peaceful implementation of church reforms without the use of violence. But his calls were not heeded, and in the 16th century the Western Church not only underwent a schism, but also experienced terrible era religious wars.

The reasons for the first divisions of the Western Church were both ecclesiastical, stemming from internal state the Church itself, as well as political: disagreements between individual states, opposition of the Germanic peoples to Rome and papal domination. by the most prominent representative opposition was the people's leader Ulrich von Hutten. And the first church movement against Rome was led by Martin Luther. The son of a poor German miner, he was born in 1483 in the town of Eisleben. From early childhood, his mother taught him to see in God only a terrible and implacable judge, and these first childhood impressions remained with him for the rest of his life. Luther studied in Magdeburg and Erfurt, and in 1507 he became a priest. He took a vow of monasticism during a terrible thunderstorm and later considered him to death "forced", taken under the influence of fear.

In 1515, events took place that caused the beginning of a schism in the Catholic Church. Pope Leo X, son of Duke Laurence the Magnificent of Florence, a great patron of the arts, decided to hasten the construction of the grandiose Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome, which was supposed to replace the ancient basilica. It took a lot of money to build. To raise funds in the German states, a monopoly was given to the Fugger banking house in Augsburg, which put the matter on a very wide scale. In addition to selling permits (indulgences) for the living, the Dominican monk Tetzel began selling letters to save the souls of the dead, which caused a heated protest from many theologians. When Tetzel arrived in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther was then teaching, the latter nailed 95 theses to the doors of the local church, condemning the abuses of all who sold permits. The theses of 1517 made a very great impression throughout Germany, and theological disputes began everywhere.

In 1520, the pope issued a bull in which, without naming Luther, he condemned his theses. Bulla was received very hostilely in Germany. The elector of Saxony refused to detain Luther, and the latter solemnly burned the bull in the square.

By this time, Martin Luther had written four theological treatises. If in the first, about the Mother of God (an interpretation of the "Song of the Virgin"), he remained in church tradition, then in the other three he broke sharply with her. The second work is entitled "To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation". In it, he carried out his ideas about the "universal priesthood" and called on the laity to reform the Church. In the third work, On the Freedom of the Christian, he spoke of salvation by faith alone, and not by works; in the fourth, "On the Babylonian Captivity", he rejected the Sacraments of the Priesthood, Chrismation, Marriage and Unction, as well as the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts. The last years of Luther's life, after he retired from his rank and married, were spent in strengthening Lutheranism in certain parts of Germany and in the struggle with his spiritual opponents, mainly with the Swiss Ulrich Zwingli. Luther died in 1545.

In 1530, the Imperial Diet met in Augsburg, to which the Lutherans presented their confession of faith, compiled by the German theologian Melanchthon. The emperor rejected the confession, but many princes and free cities accepted it, and Germany was divided into two warring camps. Protestant princes formed a League, but the Turkish invasion of Europe temporarily changed the situation. The Emperor agreed to address the Council. Nevertheless, in 1546 a religious war between the Protestant and Catholic states began and ended with the defeat of the Protestants. In 1555, peace was concluded in Augsburg and the formula “Whoever the kingdom, that is religion” was adopted, subordinating the life of the Church entirely to state interests. The Augsburg Confession of Faith of 1530 has remained ever since the official statement of the faith of Lutheranism.

The second reformer was the Swiss Ulrich Zwingli (1484 - 1531), the son of a wealthy peasant who received a good education in Bern and Basel. He was a student of Erasmus of Rotterdam and, like him, devoted himself to the study of Holy Scripture. As a priest in Zurich, he began to preach a complete transformation of church life and soon broke completely with the Catholic Church. He was against any external manifestations of faith, rejected the mass, taught that the Eucharist is only a pious custom performed in remembrance of the Last Supper and did not allow any images, icons, statues and even a cross into the premises where prayer was performed.

Zwingli was killed at the Battle of Kappel. Some of his disciples joined Luther, and some joined John Calvin. John Calvin (1509 - 1564) belonged to a new generation of reformers, he began his activity very early. He was born in Noyon, France, in a family that was distinguished by its free-thinking. At the age of 14, he went to Paris, settled on Mount Saint Genevieve and became a diligent student of the university, despite the fact that student life was very difficult. After that, he continued his education at the faculties of law in Orleans and Bourges.

In 1535 he wrote his famous theological treatise, The Christian Ordinance, which is still fundamental to all Calvinists. The success of this work in France, Switzerland and, partly, in the Netherlands was exceptional. Calvin taught in it the doctrine of the complete predestination of some people to death, and others to salvation, and about the non-participation of the human will in salvation.

In Geneva, Calvin and his friend Farel began to introduce the new doctrine with inexorable rigor. In 1538, the local authorities expelled them from Geneva, but three years later they returned there again. From 1541 to 1564, Calvin was a real dictator in Geneva and fought very cruelly with everyone who did not agree with him, putting them to death. So, for example, he burned the Spanish scientist Michael Servet. The religious state of Calvin was characterized by extreme intolerance towards all dissidents. All citizens of Geneva were placed under constant surveillance.

Calvinism was not limited to the Canton of Geneva. It quickly spread in France, where the highest circles of the nobility and part of the clergy sympathized with him. It soon took on, both in France and especially in the Netherlands, the form of iconoclasm. Calvinists attacked monasteries and temples, destroyed statues, icons and altars. During the new iconoclasm, many monuments of church art were destroyed, especially in the region of Lyon and Antwerp.

Calvinism also penetrated north to Scotland, where it was led by John Knox, the founder of "Puritanism" (followers of the purity of Christian doctrine). Also, followers of the religious teachings of Calvin appeared in Poland, mainly among large landowners, headed by the princes Radziwills.

The turbulent events in European states were also reflected in the church life of England. In England, the royal power was greatly increased to early XVI century, and at the same time weakened the influence of the papacy. The church in England had long been partly dependent on the king and parliament, but before the reign Henry VIII still subject to Rome. When the pope in 1534 did not agree to the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Parliament passed the Act of Royal Supremacy, and the Church of England broke off canonical relations with Rome.

King Henry VIII limited himself to breaking with Rome and taking away the property of monasteries and churches to the treasury, but he remained a Catholic at heart. Under Henry's successor, his son Edward VI (1547-53), a reform of doctrine and worship began in England, but not in such a sharp form as in Germany and Switzerland. Communion was allowed under both types, marriages of priests were allowed, everyone was allowed to read the Bible, translated into English under Henry. Then, after long meetings of English and visiting German theologians, a general prayer book and ritual book was published (1548) and, finally, 42 members of the Anglican faith (in 1551). To please the adherents of both faiths, a peculiar mixture of Catholicism and Lutheranism was created.

Under Queen Elizabeth, the Episcopal Church of England with a mixed creed was finally formed, which received the name Anglican and became the state.

Almost simultaneously with the break of the English Church with Rome, there was a break with the papacy and the Scandinavian Churches. It was committed in both Sweden and Denmark by the royal authorities and was accompanied by the confiscation of church property. Both the Swedish king Gustav Vasa and the Danish kings Frederick I and Christian III introduced the Lutheran religion in their states, but with the preservation of the episcopate, as in England.

It was one of the richest and most powerful organizations in Europe. But this strength was only apparent: among the parishioners, both simple and noble, dissatisfaction with the omnipotence of the clergy was growing more and more, which, in the end, resulted in a movement for the restructuring of the church - the Reformation.

By the end of the 15th century, strong royal power had formed in many countries of Europe. The kings, who relied on the army and the bureaucracy, were unhappy with the intervention of the Popes in their affairs. The monarchs did not need their valuable instructions. Haunted the kings and wealth which was one of the largest landowners in Europe. Yes, if only this! On tithing, paying for services and selling indulgences, the clergy earned a lot of money, which “floated away” to distant Rome. And the monarchs, of course, did not like it.

Ordinary people something else did not suit the church orders. Firstly, the high cost of rituals and various requisitions. Secondly, the language of worship - not everyone understood what the priest was saying in his Latin. But even more dissatisfied was the fact that the church sanctified the existing inequality. It turned out that a person of humble origin had to remain a nobody all his life, even if he made it to the people, having become rich. Or endure bullying on the part of those in power only because, they say, it was so predicted from above.

Beginning of the Reformation

The Catholic Church caused the greatest discontent in fragmented Germany. Therefore, it was with her that the Reformation began in Europe. In 1517, a young professor of theology, Martin Luther, posted 95 theses on the doors of the palace church - his views on church orders. The reason was the rampant trade in indulgences. These documents were, in modern terms, certificates of absolution. They were sold by monks traveling around Germany. At the expense of indulgences, the Pope planned to rebuild the church of St. Peter in Rome. Luther condemned all these practices. He believed that the Pope had no right to issue indulgences. Luther also opposed lavish ceremonies, monasticism and that given by priests. To make the Bible more understandable for ordinary Germans who did not know Latin, he translated it into their native language.

Luther's bold sermons made Leo X uneasy. He urged him to renounce his views, and when he refused, he declared him a heretic and excommunicated him from the church. But this did not frighten Luther - on the contrary, having received a papal bull, he tore it to shreds. Yesterday's professor had a lot of supporters, including quite influential ones. One of the German princes hid it in his castle, where Luther wrote theological works. Meanwhile, the Reformation in Europe developed more and more actively. Luther had followers who proposed to go even further, establishing universal equality. Their leader, Thomas Müntzer, led an uprising that turned into a peasant war. The German princes quickly defeated the poorly armed insurgents, who had no command of the military. The uprising was brutally suppressed. After that, the Reformation in Germany finally passed into the hands of the secular nobility.

Fight between two churches

True, not all of the aristocracy took Luther's ideas positively. An armed struggle ensued between Catholics and Protestants (as the adherents of the new doctrine began to be called). It lasted quite a long time and ended with the establishment that each prince himself has the right to determine what religion will be in his possessions. The idea of ​​rebuilding the church turned out to be contagious, and soon the Reformation in Europe spread to the south of Germany, Switzerland, France. In the Netherlands, local Protestants generally raised an uprising against Spanish domination and achieved independence.

The Reformation developed in England in a peculiar way. King Henry VIII demanded from the Pope that he allowed him to divorce his next wife. He refused, and the monarch announced that the English Church was no longer dependent on Rome. So, in 1534, the king became the head of the clergy in this country, and at the same time the owner of all church property. It is clear that the refusal of the Pope was for him only an excuse to seize everything that belonged to the church. And it was done very quickly. Otherwise, the Anglican Church, as it was now called, was similar to the Catholic Church for a long time.

However, by the middle of the 16th century, the Catholic clergy came to its senses, and the Reformation in Europe began to meet with serious resistance. The vanguard of the struggle against the Protestants was founded in 1540. His followers created a network of schools in European countries that provided an excellent education and instilled in students loyalty to the Catholic Church. The Jesuits did not shy away from espionage, entangling all the royal courts with their agents. These measures did much to stop the Reformation. But the former power of the Catholic Church no longer had.

The beginning of the Reformation in Europe is associated with the name Martin Luther. Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church at Wittenberg in Saxony. This happened after the arrival in the area of ​​the German preacher Johann Tetzel, who sold indulgences to raise money for Pope Leo X. Indulgences have already for a long time were criticized by Catholic theologians (scholars in the field of religion), but their financial success ensured the existence of this practice, since it was too profitable to stop it.

In response, on October 23, 1514, Luther placed a document with 95 theses (statements) on the door of the city church. Luther's theses were not radical, but they attracted a large audience, and, thanks to recent developments in the development of printing, they were widely distributed and read everywhere.

Luther's initial criticism of the church was directed against the sale of indulgences, but he continued to attack the core of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation (the belief that bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ at communion), priestly celibacy, and the primacy of popes. He also called for the reform of religious orders, monasteries, and the return of the simplicity of the earlier church.

lutheran church

The Reformation in Europe spread after Luther's challenge to the established church. He won many followers, but initially Luther only wanted to reform the existing church, not create an entirely new system.

Several attempts were made to reconcile Luther with the religious authorities. In 1521 he was called to present his views before the imperial parliament at Worms, in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who ruled much of Europe. Luther refused to recant his views and, having already been excommunicated by the pope, he was now outlawed by the emperor.

In response, he founded an independent church and began translating the Bible into German. Previous editions of the Bible were in Latin. Luther's edition allowed people to read the Bible in their own language for the first time.

Part of the strength of Luther's teaching was his call for a Germanic identity. Germany at this point consisted of many independent states that were nominally subject to Emperor Charles V. The German princes wanted to maintain their power, and they saw in Luther's teachings a way to simultaneously get rid of both imperial and ecclesiastical control over Germany. What began as a religious dispute soon became a political revolution.

In 1524, a peasant war broke out in the southwestern part of Germany as a result of economic difficulties in the region. A league of German princes, backed by Luther, brutally crushed the uprising in 1526. The rebellion horrified Luther, as did the secular leaders against whom it was directed.

One by one, the northern German states - Saxony, Hesse. Brandenburg, Braunschweig and others accepted Lutheranism. Each state seized control of the church, strengthening the power of the ruler over its people.

worldwide response

The appeal of Lutheranism was not limited to Germany. In 1527, King Gustav Vasa of Sweden, who had achieved independence from Denmark and Norway in 1523, seized church lands to provide funds for his new state. He then reformed the new state church according to Lutheran rules.

A similar process of adaptation of Lutheranism took place in Denmark and Norway in 1536. In England, the break with the Roman Church occurred after the pope refused to approve the divorce of Henry VIII from his wife Catherine of Aragon. Henry replaced the pope as head of the English church.

Political implications

The political response to the Lutheran Reformation was led by Emperor Charles V, but his vast possessions in Europe brought him into conflict, incl. and with France. The war between these two powers, and also between Charles and the growing power of the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean and the Balkans meant that he could not devote all his resources to destroying Lutheranism in Germany.

Charles defeated the Lutherans at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, but failed to politically destroy them. A religious and political compromise was finally reached after the peace of Augsburg in 1555, by which the emperor gave a decree to every prince in his empire to choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism, and to spread this faith among his subjects.

Luther himself was a conservative theologian and respected order. But many of those who followed him were much more radical.

Zwingli and Calvin

In Zurich W. Zwingli converted the city to the Lutheran faith. His 67 theses in 1523 were accepted by the city councils as official doctrine. However, he disagreed with Luther about the nature of the Eucharist (the bread and wine taken during communion) and began to lead the Swiss church in a more radical, non-hierarchical direction. His death in 1531 during the defense of Zurich against the Catholic cantons (provinces) of Switzerland slowed the momentum of the Reformation in Switzerland.

John Calvin, who began to create a new religious center in Geneva, later became a key figure associated with the Protestant reform in Switzerland. Calvin converted to the new reformed faith in 1533 and settled in Geneva in 1536. There he developed a more severe form of Protestantism, based on his own reading of the Scriptures and his deep academic training, which emphasized purpose—the power of God over all human actions.

Although Calvin himself did not develop any practical theory of resistance to wicked authority like that of the Catholic Church or Catholic rulers, many of his followers were willing to defend their views by force on the basis of his teachings. Like Luther, he emphasized the direct relationship of the individual to God without the mediation of the pope or priests, and the primacy of the Bible as the basis of all preaching and teaching. The Bible was now widely circulated in modern languages and not in Latin, the language of the church.

Unlike Luther, however, who believed in the political subordination of the church to the state, Calvin preached that church and state should work together to create a divine society in which religious beliefs and a strict code of conduct should govern every aspect of daily life.

Calvinism spread to Scotland, the Netherlands and many parts of France, where its followers were known as Huguenots, as well as to various parts of the German states, to Bohemia and Transylvania. Calvinism also inspired the Puritan movement in England, and later in North America, where its adherents wanted to purge the Anglican Church of the Catholic elements that remained in it, in particular the power of bishops and other "papist" decorations - church robes, utensils and music.

Catholic response

The original Catholic response to the Reformation was to excommunicate those who rebelled against it. When it became clear that this would not help defeat the Reformation, the Catholic Church began to reform itself on the basis of internal calls for church reform that long predated Luther's speech.

After three meetings at Trident in the Italian Alps in 1545-1563. The Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic Counter-Reformation developed successfully, strengthening Catholicism both theologically and politically, although a more authoritarian orthodoxy was established.

Poland, Austria, and Bavaria became fully Catholic, but while Germany was largely at peace, a strong Calvinist (Huguenot) presence in France sparked long religious wars that only ended after the Edict of Nantes in 1598 declared religious toleration. . At the end of the century, perhaps 40% of the population of Europe followed one or the other reformed beliefs.