Reformation

16 Pages 3881 Words

books and spread new ideas throughout Europe. Humanists outside Italy, such as Desiderius Erasmus in the Netherlands and Sir Thomas More in England, applied the new learning to the evaluation of church practices and the development of a more accurate knowledge of the Scriptures. Their scholarly studies laid the basis on which Luther, the French theologian and religious reformer John Calvin, and other reformers subsequently claimed the Bible rather than the church as the source of all religious authority. Luther initiated national Movements The Protestant revolution in Germany in 1517, when he published his 95 theses challenging the theory and practice of indulgences. Papal authorities ordered Luther to retract and submit to church authority, but he became more intransigent, appealing for reform, attacking the sacramental system, and urging that religion rest on individual faith based on the guidance contained in the Bible. Threatened with excommunication by the pope, Luther publicly burned the papal decree of excommunication and with it a volum...