The Protestant Reformation began when the Catholic church was practicing things that were not acceptable such as selling indulgences which was a piece of paper that stated, “your sins are forgiven,” they could be bought for one’s family or friend or even one’s self. The reason that this was unacceptable is because the Bible tells us that forgiveness is nothing that can be bought, and eventually people began to stand up for that. The first person to ever do this was a man named John Wycliffe who lived 200 years before Martin Luther. He was born in 1320 and is referred to as the Morning Star of the Reformation, he earned a bachelors degree at the Oxford University he was the first to print the Bible in English, however he did not finish it because he unfortunately had a stroke and died in 1384. His friend John Purvey finished the Wycliffe Bible. 31 years after Wycliffe’s death he was declared a heretic and his bones were dug up from the grave and burned along with his writings, and the ashes were thrown into the River Swift.
After Wycliffe came a man name John Hus, he was a late 14th century theologian. Hus was influenced by John Wycliffe and he spoke out against the practices of the Catholic Church. John Hus was born in July 1369 to a poor family, even though he still pulled through school and earned a degree in theology. John became a priest, having had an ordination in 1400. Not long after that, he began to speak out against the Catholic Church. Hus was not popular with the king, nor the pope. He was known to have a temper and he did not adhere to reprimands from the authorities, and after that he was cut of from preaching in the church. In 1414 the Council of Constance was joined and Hus requested to attend. He was arrested at Constance after being promised safe travel. A trial began in 1415 and three separate trials were held and his odds were not good; many believed that he deserved to be killed. He was burned at the stake on July 6, 1515, and as he died he proclaimed that in 100 years another reformer would come.
After those two preceding men came an age of reformers and most of them came about because of one man named Gerhard Groote. He grew up in the Netherlands as a spoiled person because he inherited all of his parent’s wealth when they died from The Black Death. When The Black Death spread through the town again Groote began to bring in orphans and teach and clothe them. And he started schools called Reverend of the Common Life. The schools taught good principals and when the students graduated, some of them taught the next group of students and some went into other things. One of these things was Protestantism, and most of the famous reformers came from those schools, ones such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Thomas Kempis, Martin Bucer, and John Knox. All those men who did amazing work in the Reformation came from Groote’s schools.
One of the most famous Reformers was martin Luther. Martin Luther was a German monk who was born in 1483 in Germany. His father was a miner and he desired for Luther to have a better life, and to do so, he became a lawyer and Luther was able to do his study’s at the age of seven, all the way to 1505 when his life was changed. He was traveling when a severe thunderstorm hit and it was so violent that he cried out to St. Anne that if he would be saved from the storm he would become a monk. The storm passed and he went to a monastery and became a monk. He studied as a monk and was led to a life of piety. He had problems with fear of the Lord’s wrath against sin and the punishment of hell. In 1513 he finally understood that by faith alone he would be saved and not by his actions. Pop Leo was building a cathedral in 1517 and used indulgences to get more money. This angered Luther and he spoke out against it and against the Pope. Some people believed that the church needed to change its ways, and Luther gave the tipping point when he nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. The 95 Theses was a list of 95 topics that he would argue the church, and unless they could show him in the bible where he went wrong he would not recant his sayings. In 1521 the pope excommunicated Luther at the “diet of Worms” which was a council, and his writings were banned in the “Edict of Worms.” Luther, now declared a heretic, had to flee for his life. His friends took him to a place where he could continue his work in safety. In 1525, the rage against him was dissolved and he was able to start a church of his own and raise a family. Martin Luther died in 1546 but he finished one of his greatest achievements, translating the New Testament bible into German. He is remembered as one of the greatest reformers of his time.
Another great reformer of the time was John Calvin. John Calvin was born to a poor family in 1509, in France. Calvin wanted to be a lawyer and it improved his family’s position a little, but he originally wanted a job in the church but his father urged him to be a lawyer. He knew several languages such as Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Calvin also converted to Christianity and he even quoted, “God drew me from obscure and lowly beginnings and conferred on me that most beautiful office of herald and minister of the Gospel.” He had amazingly written his first book at the young age of 22. Before long John Calvin joined the Lutheran movement (John Calvin and Martin Luther were contemporaries) and supported the Reformation. After suffering persecution in Paris he fled away to Basel that was where he wrote a book called “The Institutes of the Christian Religion” in 1536. Calvin was going on a trip to Strasbourg with some of his friends to expand their ministry but along the way they stopped in the town of Geneva and several dramatic events led Calvin to become a pastor there. He based his ministry there under four principals from the New Testament, 1. It is the pastor’s job to administer the Word and Sacraments 2. Doctors and Teachers had the responsibility of education 3. The elders observed the daily life of the people 4.The deacons were in charge of the social welfare of Geneva. Even though Calvin was very busy as the pastor of Geneva he helped out in Strasburg with Martin Bucer who was another reformer. Calvin had had poor health for most of his life and all the work that he was doing weighed him down even more, but he pressed on and continued productivity. He kept going with writing and preaching until he finally stopped, but that was just a few months before he died in May 1564 in Geneva. John Calvin was a great reformer and he helped to change the Catholic Church like other Reformers before him.
This essay has covered how the Protestant Reformation began, the very first of the reformers, where most of the reformers came from and some of the most famous ones. The reformers were part of a great movement and they all believed that the Catholic Church needed to change its ways, and as God brought more and more of them into play, they rose up and the Catholic people began to yield, and countries began to take sides some became protestant nations while others remained Catholic, but as time went on, the protestants became clearly dominant.
Information gathered from the Ron Paul Curriculum 7th grade history class
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