Among the main events of the Modern Age, especially of the 16th century, is the phenomenon of Protestant Reformation. like the RebirthCultural, which had a wide impact on the arts and sciences in Europe, the Protestant Reformation promoted a great transformation of the religious thought in Europe, as well as incited major political upheavals associated with these transformations in the field. religious. Among the main representatives of Protestantism are martinLuther and JoãoCalvin.
Martin Luther (1483-1546), despite having been preceded by some medievals, such as the English JohnWycliffe (1330 – 1384), he was the first member of the Catholic Church to decisively break with that institution when he fixed his 95 theses in the chapel of Wittemberg, Germany. These theses opposed the practice of selling indulgences (absolution of sins while still alive, on Earth) by some members of the clergy. Luther conceived that the acquisition of indulgences by the faithful could not guarantee him eternal salvation without their being accompanied by penances, that is, the believer could not consider himself fully saved only by a simple absolution of a priest.
Luther's thought had immediate repercussions in Germany (in the principalities that made up what we now call Germany) and it did not take long for it to spread to other regions of Europe. Many of these principalities, formerly integrated with the Holy Roman Empire, took the opportunity to adopt Lutheranism and thus dissociate themselves from the Church and the Holy Empire. Many German peasants organized revolts starting from the Protestant theses. These measures ended up triggering a gigantic civil war that would span the century.
One of the historical characters most intensely affected, from a religious and intellectual point of view, by the Protestant theses was the Frenchman. John Calvin (1509-1564). Calvin became widely known in France and Switzerland from the 1530s onwards. There he developed his own Protestant theses, including the prerogatives of salvation by faith and good works, as well as the question of predestination. These ideas were also supported in England, where Puritanism was to be formed, and in the United States – heirs of this English Protestant strand.
It was also in England that a very particular case of Protestant reformation developed, the Anglicanism, founded by the king Henry VIII (1509-1547), in the 1530s, as a form of protest to the Catholic Church, which prevented him from getting divorced. Starting from personal interests, the Anglican Church preserved some features of the Catholic Church, however transforming many of its dogmas.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/historia/o-que-e-reforma-protestante.htm
