The European Reformations as the Most Transformative Events in the History of Religion - Article Example

The Reformation was one of the most transformative events in the history of religion in Europe, and its effects on the history of Europe as a whole cannot be underestimated. In the sixteenth century, political, cultural and economic concerns were inseparable from the issue of religion. The complex nature of the Reformation spanned the whole of Europe, and a comprehensive discussion would necessitate several volumes of books. Therefore, this essay will provide a general background on the origins and nature of the Reformation, and then move on to discuss some of its most important consequences in three specific countries: Germany, England and France. The religious revolution of the sixteenth century was not an overnight event. Discontent had been seething for several centuries. Ebenstein and Ebenstein (2000, p. 303) note that prior to the thirteenth century, reformers did not pose much of a threat to the Catholic Church. As these critics lacked real religious fervour, the Church was easily able to ignore or quash their protests. From the thirteenth century onwards, however, increasing numbers of passionately religious individuals began to object to the Church’s excesses. Some church leaders tried to enact reforms within the framework of Catholicism, most notably through the failed Councils of Constance and Basel. During the Renaissance, some Christian Humanists such as Erasmus appealed to their fellow Catholics’ reason and faith to spur change. However, the supreme leadership of the Church balked at any type of shift. The excesses that offended devout Catholics such as Martin Luther remained unchecked, and revolution became inevitable. The nature of religion in the sixteenth century made it impossible for the Reformation not to become a political concern. The Catholic Church enjoyed a great deal of secular power in the form of immense wealth, vast tracts of land, and powerful political alliances. All of these factors, coupled with the Church’s sway over the hearts and minds of the common people, made the Church a formidable opponent indeed. Nevertheless, the unshakeable religious conviction of the reformers proved a decisive factor in the survival of their ideas, which spread like wildfire through the continent. Among the bitterest conflicts in human history are those disputes between fervent believers of opposing religions. The collision of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation movements is one of the most prominent examples of this type of conflict. The dispute was also exacerbated by the socio-economic-political factors previously mentioned. Almost all European countries took sides, either with the Reformation or the Counter-Reformation. Some leaders based their decisions on religious fervour, while others simply saw a chance for political gain in the turmoil. Whatever their motivations, Protestants and Catholics invariably attacked each other with great viciousness, whether in the form of writing, preaching, or all-out war. Typically, when Protestant reform was associated with the ruling political power, as in Germany and England, it succeeded. Where Catholicism was defended by the monarchy, as in France, the Reformation failed. In this way the Reformation radically altered the political landscape of Europe. Germany The catalyst for the revolution was the appearance of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences in 1517. This document protested directly against the commercialization of spirituality as embodied in the sale of indulgences. Indulgences were spiritual favours which were paid for with actual money and were said to guarantee the forgiveness of one’s sins. They were also an extremely lucrative business for the Catholic Church. Pettegree (2000, p. xxiii) points out that Luther’s act of nailing the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg would have been a controversy limited to the educated circles of that period if it had not been for the fact that copies written in layman’s German were made available to the general public. For the first time, the German-speaking public was able to fully comprehend and become directly involved in the religious issue at stake. This opening up of religious debate to the common people would was the beginning of the Protestant revolution. Condemnation of Luther’s actions was swift, but many Catholics also recognized the validity of his ideas. Several theologians and lay intellectuals supported Luther’s objections. Unfortunately, both sides were unable to reach a peaceful compromise. Relations between the reformers and conservatives steadily worsened, eventually leading to the Papal Bull of 1520 and Luther’s declaration that the Pope was the Antichrist and that Rome was the apocalyptic Whore of Babylon (Tracy, 2006, pp. 53-54). From this point onwards, Catholicism and Lutheranism would prove to be irreconcilable. One of the most significant contributions that Luther made to the history of religion in Europe was his translation of the Bible into German. The Bible had been available in German for some time, but these translations were generally looked upon as inferior. Church authorities generally thought German was too poor a language to express the full beauty of the Word of God. They also discouraged commoners from reading the Bible on their own, advising them to rely on the interpretations of a priest or other learned figure instead. Luther spearheaded a break with these time-honoured traditions with a translation that earned him the nickname the “Wittenberg nightingale.” His ability to find contemporary German equivalents for the antiquated expressions, proverbs and analogies of the ancient Jews meant that the Word of God became much more relevant to a much larger number of Christians. His exceptional creativity also meant that while the common people could easily understand his translation, the beauty of the original was also preserved. His monumental work earned him grudging respect from even his enemies. Luther’s translation became the most popular book in Germany, and as a result of giving Germans a common reference book for their budding national tongue, Luther is also credited with laying the foundations of the modern German language. (Gritsch, 2003, p. 69). Luther’s success was quickly emulated by other translators. Versions of the Bible in other European languages proliferated, and were a decisive factor in the rapid spread of Protestantism. Catholic leaders could no longer dupe the masses with interpretations from the Latin that could not be contested. Naturally, Catholics adopted a reactionary stance to Bibles in the vernacular, banning them from being marketed in Catholic countries. (McGrath, 2006, pp. 45-47) Curiously enough, Strauss (2004, pp. 179-201) notes that fifty years after the beginning of the Reformation, most Lutheran reformers, including Luther himself, believed they had failed to create lasting and widespread change in the spiritual lives of their fellow Germans. While it was true that their movement had led to the establishment of many strong Protestant churches across the continent, they lamented the German populace’s indifference to the ideas of the Reformation and to the Gospel itself. This can be traced to the uneven and sporadic nature of Protestant evangelization in many regions of Germany. While there were many districts in which people were found to be well-versed in Scripture, there were also many reports of districts in which even the priests could not identify which of the Holy Trinity died on the cross. Instead of being good Christians, the people of these districts faithfully practiced “pagan” rituals. Strauss underlines the fact that the Lutheran reformers saw these centuries-old folk traditions as abominations, whereas many people living in the twentieth century would respect them as another religion. The persistence of these traditions, seen from the Lutheran reformers’ zealous point of view, meant that all their evangelizing efforts had ended in failure. They lamented that their revolution was doomed to be marked off as a brief religious revival. The twentieth century point of view, however, remembers the Reformation as a defining moment of European history. England Protestantism also succeeded in England, though in a clearly different form and for markedly different reasons. While Luther rebelled because of religious differences, Henry VIII rebelled for more prosaic reasons. The Defender of the Faith broke with the papacy because it would not grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, who was unable to give him an heir. However, it is quite likely that the king would never have seriously considered seceding from the Catholic Church if Luther had not set such a dramatic precedent a decade earlier. The Reformation statutes that were proclaimed from 1532 onwards were declarations not only of Henry VIII’s God-given right to divorce his wife, but also of the political and religious sovereignty of England, a sacred ideal that would not bow to foreign pressure. The statutes declared that all legal cases involving Englishmen, including divorce, could only be decided on English soil. The statutes also declared the Church of England as an entity wholly sufficient in itself to decide matters of dogma; it did not need approval from the Church of Rome. Henry VII also proclaimed himself the supreme head of the Anglican Church. In this manner the king consolidated the political and religious in himself and in his trusted subordinates. However, Henry VIII was not simply using religion to ensure the survival of his line. Even before the polemicising events surrounding the divorce, he had already been inspired by the writings of Erasmus and was already known for being a pious advocate of reforms within the Church (Bernard, 2007, pp.68-72). The refusal of the pope to grant his divorce merely provided him with a means to further his religious and political aims in a single stroke. The proclamation of the Reformation statutes was an extremely contentious issue in and outside of England. However, Henry VIII would brook no opposition. He executed valued councillors such as Sir Thomas More for their refusal to support the schism; he also forcibly dissolved Catholic monasteries and redistributed their lands among his supporters. Catholics experienced a great deal of oppression in England, while converts found that it easy to adjust to the new order, not in the least because the new Church of England was quite similar to the old Church of Rome. For all his fiery defiance, Henry VIII instituted few changes in church doctrine. In fact, Newcombe affirms that the only similarity the Anglican Church had with other Protestant churches on the continent was the rejection of the Pope’s authority (1995, p. 2). This lack of dogmatic innovation, so to speak, is due to the largely political nature of the schism, but it was also reinforced by England’s relative geographical isolation from the rest of Europe. Protestant ideas could not spread as easily to the island nation as they could on the continent. It was Edward VI, the successor of Henry VIII, who would begin to enact the changes that would give Anglicanism its distinctive identity in line with the general tradition of Protestantism. France In stark difference to Germany and England, France remained staunchly Catholic. As has already been mentioned, this was due to the monarchy’s full-fledged support for the papacy. This unwavering loyalty included the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of Protestants over the course of several decades. The single most notorious instance of this persecution was the massacre of thirty thousand Huguenots on August 24, 1572, the feast day of St. Bartholomew. By that time relations between Catholics and Protestants had deteriorated to the point that the pope actually celebrated the mass murder with a procession through the streets of Rome and a thanksgiving mass attended by dozens of foreign and Church dignitaries. However, the massacre was not only fuelled by religious hatred. The elimination of so many able young bodies was also a means to preserve the monarchy from the very real political threat that Protestantism posed. (Greengrass, 1999, p. 74). However, conditions were not always so dire for reformers. Under the auspices of the liberal-minded Francis I, reformers and humanists enjoyed a great degree of tolerance in the first half of the 1520s. Their ideas soon found a wide audience among the French people. However, as soon as Francis I was captured in the battle of Pavia in 1525, the reformers found themselves the target of suspicious Catholic authorities. (Lindberg, 1996, p. 277) This persecution lasted for many years, prompting many reform-minded Catholics and Protestants alike to flee France for friendlier cities such as Geneva in Switzerland. John Calvin was one such exile. The brilliant and impassioned John Calvin was inspired by Luther and other intellectuals to create his own brand of Protestantism. Calvinism is most well-known for its unusual doctrine of predestination. According to this belief, the fate of all human beings has been predetermined. Humans are destined for either Heaven or Hell and no amount of penance or virtue can change this destiny. It is only by the grace of God that one is saved. Huguenots, also known as the French-speaking Calvinists, were the minority group that gave the English language the term “refugee.” They fled France to escape vicious persecution from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, establishing new roots in countries such as England and the Netherlands. It is estimated that three-quarters of all English people today have some Huguenot ancestry. (Gwynn, 1985, p. 1). Conclusion The Reformation was a multi-faceted and often bloody phenomenon that changed the face of Europe forever. The simple act of posting a complaint on a church door resulted in a movement that encompassed the entirety of Europe and later the entire world. Once Luther’s initial split with the Catholic Church was complete, it became progressively easier for others to found one’s own church. Anglicans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and all the other Protestant Churches followed the example of the Lutheran reformation in search of a renewed Christianity. The great mistake of the Catholic Church was to reject these reformers and to brand them as heretics, leaving them no choice but to sever ties completely. Crimes against humanity were perpetuated by both sides. The era was made even more chaotic by the political, economic and cultural conditions of the time, which were inseparable from the question of religion. To this day the true origins, nature, and consequences of the Reformation remain subjects of heated debate. References Bernard, G.W., 2007. The kings reformation: Henry VIII and the remaking of the English church. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press. Ebenstein, W. & Ebenstein, A, 2000. Great political thinkers: Plato to the present. 6th ed. Singapore: Thomson Learning. Greengrass, M., 1999. Hidden transcripts: secret histories and personal testimonies of religious violence in the French wars of religion. In Levene, M. & Roberts, P., eds. The massacre in history. Oxford: Berghahn. Ch. 3. Gritsch, E.W., 2003. Luther as Bible translator. In McKim, D.K., ed. The Cambridge companion to Martin Luther. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 4. Gwynn, R. D., 1985. Huguenot heritage: the history and contribution of the Huguenots in Britain. London: Routledge. Lindberg, C., 1996. The European reformations. London: Blackwell. McGrath, A. E., 2006. Christianity: an introduction. London: Blackwell. Newcombe, D.G., 1995. Henry VIII and the English reformation. London: Routledge. Pettegree, M., 2004. The reformation: critical concepts in historical studies. London: Taylor & Francis. Strauss, G., 2004. Success and failure in the German reformation. In Pettegree, M. The Reformation: critical concepts in historical studies. London: Taylor & Francis. Ch. 10. Tracy, J. D., 2006. Europe’s reformations, 1450-1650: doctrine, politics, and community. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield. Read More