Protestant Reformation

Before the 16th-century Reformation, there were various movements that criticised and tried to reform Catholic officialdom and its teachings in different parts of Europe, including those led by Peter Waldo in late 12th-century Lyon, John Wycliffe in 14th-century England and Jan Hus in Bohemia around 1400. However, all of these movements were largely confined to their respective regions and brutally suppressed by the Catholic church, preventing them from spreading further. The Protestant Reformation has its background in Renaissance Humanism, an intellectual movement favouring scholarship and critical thinking, which began in Italy before spreading to the rest of Europe. The Papacy during the Renaissance was so corrupt that the need for reform was widely acknowledged both inside and outside the church – the Council of Trent (1545-1563), convened as a reaction to the Reformation, brought that Catholic reform and would remain the last Council for three centuries. While Italy had an early Protestant movement, the Catholic Church maintained its authority across the peninsula. A key to the success of 16th-century Reformation was the invention of movable type printing by Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz around 1450. That made the dissemination of scripts and books much easier.

Martin Luther, born 1483 in Eisleben as the son of a miner, was set to become a lawyer, but chose to be ordained as an Augustinian friar after nearly being struck by lightning in 1505. The monastic order encouraged him to study theology at the University of Wittenberg. Luther traveled to Rome in 1510 (his furthest voyage in life) and later described this as a crucial experience. He was shocked over what he perceived as flippancy and immorality.

In 1516, the Vatican sent the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel to Germany to sell letters of indulgence in order to raise money for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. Tetzel purportedly told believers that "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs".

Luther protested this practice as he believed it had no foundation in the Bible. He wrote to Albert of Brandenburg, who was the archbishop of both Mainz and Magdeburg, attaching a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" consisting of 95 theses. Whether Luther, as often claimed, simultaneously posted these theses at the door of Wittenberg's All Saints' Church, is not historically proven, but neither is it entirely improbable. One of the theses asked: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?" Thanks to modern printing technology, Luther's theses rapidly circulated not only within Germany but in all of Western Europe within a few months. Students from several European countries flocked to Wittenberg to hear Luther speak.

Luther's core convictions (that became tenets of Protestantism in general) can be summed up in the "four alones" (solae):

• "By scripture alone" (sola scriptura in Latin) all dogmas that have no source in the Bible are invalid. This eliminates many Catholic practices such as confession, indulgences, fasting during Lent, and celibacy of priests (Luther himself married). He did, however, keep the doctrine of the Trinity though that has no clear Biblical foundation.
• "By faith alone" (sola fide) eternal life cannot be acquired by human deeds.
• "By grace alone" (sola gratia), salvation is attained by the grace that God gives even though people don't deserve it.
• "By Christ alone" (solus Christus), Christ is the only mediator of salvation, no adoration of saints or the Virgin Mary.

Luther was accused of heresy, but refused to retract his teachings at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg (1518) and Worms (1521), famously stating "Here I stand. I can do no other." He was therefore excommunicated (which he answered by publicly burning the papal decree), ostracised and outlawed. Protected by his sovereign, the Elector of Saxony, he went into hiding at the Wartburg castle of Eisenach, where he translated the New Testament into German — a huge taboo back then as the Roman Catholic church required that all scripture be published in only Greek or Latin. In 1525, he broke his celibacy by marrying Katharina von Bora, a nun who had fled from her monastery.

While Luther had initially planned to reform the Catholic Church as a whole, not to split it, this proved impossible. After 1526, he began organising a new church, which is now known as Lutheran. He died in 1546 in his birth town of Eisleben.

Some of the German rulers soon adopted and supported Protestantism in their respective states. This led to a series of wars between the Catholic Emperor and the Schmalkaldic League of Lutheran lords. They – temporarily – ended with the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 that allowed the rulers of each state of the Holy Roman Empire to choose either Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism as the official denomination of their state (principle of Cuius regio, eius religio—"Whose realm, his religion").

One truly unfortunate aspect of Martin Luther's career is his relationship with and stated attitudes toward Jews. At first, he took a friendly stance toward the Jews because he hoped he could persuade them to convert to the reformed church he was creating. However, when he discovered that they considered Lutheranism just another form of Christianity and continued to disagree with it, he became exceedingly hostile and made such extreme anti-Jewish remarks that it shouldn't surprise anyone that Hitler declared that he was inspired by Luther's anti-Jewish rhetoric. For example, in his treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies, he wrote that Christians should burn down synagogues and Jewish schools, refuse to let Jews live among Christians, confiscate religious books from Jews, forbid rabbis to preach, withhold protection from Jews on highways, take away all Jewish-owned silver and gold and return it to only those who convert to Christianity, make Jews do forced labor or expel them, and he even wrote that "we are at fault in not slaying them". Since the late 20th century, some branches of Lutheranism, such as in the United States, have formally apologized to the Jews for their founder's remarks and asked for forgiveness.

A similar movement took place in Switzerland, where Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), pastor of the Grossmünster in Zurich, started to openly criticise the corruption of the Catholic high clergy and customs that he found to be without justification in the Bible. These included fasting during Lent, celibacy of priests and iconography. However, Zwingli—like Luther—condemned the even more radical sect of Anabaptists. The symbolic starting date of the Swiss Reformation was the "Affair of the Sausages" on Quadragesima Sunday 1522, the first Sunday of Lent, when some burghers of Zurich deliberately defied Catholic fasting rules. In 1529, Zwingli and Luther met in Marburg for a disputation over the question of whether Christ was really present in the Eucharist. They failed to find common ground, which is one of the reasons why different Protestant denominations (Lutheran on the one, Reformed on the other hand) emerged and exist till this day.

Zwingli's teachings spread to other Swiss cantons and were most notably extended by John Calvin (1509–1564) who originated from Picardy in northern France, but spent most of his adult life in Geneva. Because of him, Reformed churches are nowadays almost synonymously referred to as Calvinist.

See also: Nordic history, Danish Empire, Swedish Empire

The national churches of Sweden (1527), Denmark (1536) and Norway (1537) converted to Lutheranism following their respective monarchs, not without some resistance. The Reformation meant that the king of Denmark-Norway seized control of the church and its properties, and effectively made himself archbishop. Catholicism was outlawed in Denmark-Norway (including Holstein, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland). Catholic bishops were replaced by Lutherans, and the number of Danish clergy and civil servants in Norway increased. The National Council of Norway and the Chancellor of Norway were both abolished, effectively turning Norway into a Danish province. The Bible was eventually printed in Danish, a pushback for the Norwegian language. The Reformation also implied a decline for Trondheim (Nidaros) as a key city in Norway. Trondheim with its great cathedral was the seat of the Catholic archbishop of Nidaros and the ecclesiastical province of Nidaros included Norway, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe islands (previously also Shetland, Orkney, and the Isle of Man).

Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim and St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall are important monuments from the Catholic period. In Norway, when church buildings were converted from Catholic to Protestant, this was often accompanied by a destruction of Catholic art and ornaments. Some churches were demolished or abandoned. During the Middle Ages, most churches in Norway were wooden and built in the local stave church technique and often in an idiosyncratic style. Of some 1,000 such buildings, only 30 survived the post-Reformation period. After the Reformation, all new wooden churches were log buildings. According to Protestant ideals, the church building should be designed as an auditorium or a lecture hall with seats for all organized around the pulpit because the sermon became the focal point of the church service.

Swedish king Gustav Vasa began the Reformation as he was crowned in 1527, founding the Church of Sweden, and stripping the church of most of its land and silverware, and some bronze bells. At this time, Sweden included Finland, and thanks to the reformation, the Finnish written language was created by Mikael Agricola, who had been sent to Wittenberg to study and got Melanchthon and Luther as teachers. A century later, the Swedish Empire joined the Thirty Years War as a defender of the Protestant faith, and expanded into northern Germany. The Church of Sweden remained part of the government until 1999.

Calvinism was advanced by John Knox (1514–1572) in Scotland, where it became known as Presbyterianism and has shaped the Church of Scotland since 1560. In the Kingdom of France, the followers of Calvinism became known as Huguenots. They constituted the majority in some regions of France (about 10% in the whole kingdom), before thousands of them were massacred on St. Bartholomew's Day 1572. The Dutch Reformed Church was founded in 1571 and Calvinism was long the predominant Christian denomination in the Netherlands. With Presbyterian and Puritan emigrants from Britain, Huguenots from France, and Dutch Reformed from the Netherlands, the Protestant Reformation also spread to North America, where it would later evolve into the hugely popular charismatic movement.

The English Reformation, culminating with the Church of England's split from Rome around 1534, was not part of the Protestant Reformation on the continent. Rather, the split was due to a political struggle between King Henry VIII and the Pope, as King Henry VIII wanted to get a divorce, which is not allowed under Roman Catholic doctrine. Whether or not Anglicanism should be considered a variant of Protestantism is a point of many debates. Unlike the wars of religion on the continent, religious struggles in England usually took the form of struggles over the direction of Anglicanism, not whether Anglicanism should be replaced by something else. To this day the English monarch is head of the Church of England and by law Catholics are excluded from royal succession. The Anglican church also spread to North America with the colonisation by the British, and would be re-named the Episcopal Church in the United States following the American War of Independence, to remove references to the British monarchy.

• 🌍 Wittenberg. Without a doubt the most important site, at least for the Lutheran branch of Protestantism. Martin Luther studied and later taught at the University of Wittenberg (that now bears his name), presumably posted his theses at the door of All Saints' Church (Schlosskirche) in 1517, publicly burned the papal bull of his excommunication and later organised his new church from here. Apart from the Schlosskirche, the Stadtkirche St. Mary, the residences of Luther and his colleague Philipp Melanchthon are part of the World Heritage. 
• 🌍 Eisleben. Both Luther's birthplace and his death house are extant and are UNESCO World Heritage sites as well as St. Peter and Paul's church where Luther was baptised. (updated Nov 2016)
• 🌍 Erfurt. Augustinian convent where Luther lived as a monk from 1505 to 1511 (updated Nov 2016)
• 🌍 Augsburg. Was one of the richest and most powerful Imperial cities during the time of Reformation. At the Imperial Diet in 1518, Luther defended his teachings and refused to retract them. The town's citizenry predominantly adopted Protestantism very early. The Augsburg Confession, formulated in 1530, was the first definitive confession of the Lutheran faith (in some countries Lutheran churches are therefore called "Augsburg Church" or "Church of the Augsburg Confession"). The Peace of Augsburg was signed in 1555. While a number of medieval buildings still exist, the old townhall in which all these events took place, was replaced by a newer one during 1615–1624. It is nevertheless worth seeing and constitutes one of the most important Renaissance secular buildings north of the Alps. Moreover, Augsburg's Reformation-era history is documented in the Maximilian Museum and the Fuggerei, Europe's oldest social housing project endowed by the fabulously rich (and Catholic) Fugger banking family in 1521. (updated Nov 2016)
• 🌍 Heidelberg. The historic city is an important site to both Lutheranism and Calvinism. In 1518, Martin Luther participated in a disputation at the Heidelberg University (the "Heidelberg Disputation"). Elector Palatine Frederick III who ruled from 1559 to 1576 converted to Calvinism and made Heidelberg the most important centre of the Reformed denomination in Germany. The Heidelberg Catechism, one of the most important documents of the Reformed faith, was drafted here in 1563. The Church of the Holy Spirit, Heidelberg's most famous church, is a remarkable example for the plurality of denominations: It was originally Catholic, then Lutheran, then Reformed, temporarily again Catholic and finally separated by a wall into a Reformed (now united Protestant) and a Catholic (now Old Catholic) part. Luther also visited (and praised) the famous Heidelberg Castle which is now a ruin but still the city's most well-known landmark. The Bibliotheca Palatina is an immensely precious collection of documents, especially (Protestant) theological ones. It was evacuated to Rome by the Catholic party during the Thirty Years War, but the German-language manuscripts were later returned to Heidelberg (while all prints and non-German manuscripts are still in the Vatican Library). (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Leipzig. The biggest city in Saxony, one of the "heartlands" of Lutheranism. The Leipzig Debate took place in 1519 between Catholic hardliner Johannes Eck on the one hand and Luther with his supporters Melanchthon and Andreas Karlstadt on the other side, at the Pleißenburg castle. Leipzig University was among the first to teach Protestant theology. The Pleißenburg has not survived, it was demolished to make place for the new townhall (that looks a bit like a castle, too), but you may visit St Thomas and St Nicholas churches where Luther preached; as well as places linked to Johann Sebastian Bach, who used hymn tunes by Luther extensively and set several of Luther's texts to music. (updated Nov 2016)
• 🌍 Worms. Site of the Imperial Diet of 1521 where Luther was ultimately requested to abjure his teachings but resolutely refused to do so. Most of the citizenry supported Protestantism at that time and Worms was a printing centre of Protestant scripts. The small Romanesque St. Magnus' church was one of the first where evangelical sermons where delivered since 1520. Ulrich von Hutten and several Protestant theologists lived on the Ebernburg castle from 1520 and celebrated the first Communion service according to Lutheran liturgy in 1522. (updated Nov 2016)

• 🌍 Eisenach. Wartburg castle, the place where Martin Luther hid in 1521/22 and translated the Bible into German, is another World Heritage site. (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Torgau. While Wittenberg is often dubbed the "mother of reformation", Torgau may be called its "nurse". At the time, it was the residence of the Electorate of Saxony whose ruler was Luther's most powerful patron and supporter and the first among German princes to adopt the new denomination in his state. The palace church of Torgau is consequently the first newly-built Protestant Church after Reformation. Luther, Melanchthon, Justus Jonas Sr. and Johannes Bugenhagen drafted the Torgau Confession in 1530, some articles of which were later adopted into the Augsburg Confession. Luther's wife Katharina von Bora died in Torgau in 1552. (updated Nov 2016)
• 🌍 Marburg. At the time of Reformation, Marburg was the residence of the Landgraviate of Hesse, whose sovereign was one of the first rulers to adopt Protestantism. Marburg University, established in 1527, was the second Protestant one. In 1529, Landgrave Philipp I—called "the magnanimous"—invited Luther and Zwingli as well as other Protestant theologians for a disputation at Marburg castle (Marburger Schloss), hoping that they would reach a unitary, Protestant position, especially on the issue of the nature of the Lord's Supper. Neither of the sides could however convince the other. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Zurich. The place where the Swiss Reformation broke out. Grossmünster is the church where Huldrych Zwingli delivered most of his sermons. In Froschauer's House (Brunngasse 18) the symbolic "sausage eating" during Lent 1522 took place. One of three surviving copies of the 1531 Zurich Bible (or "Froschauer Bible", after its printer), the first complete translation of the Holy Scripture from the respective source languages into (Swiss) German, illustrated with colourized prints by Hans Holbein the Younger, is kept at the Grossmünster. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Geneva. John Calvin's domain that was proclaimed an independent Republic during the course of Reformation in 1536. It may even have had some characteristics of a Protestant theocracy during that time. The University of Geneva has evolved from Calvin's theologic academy, established in 1559. The Collège Calvin, St. Pierre Cathedral (the Reformed main church where Calvin preached), Calvin's grave on the Cimetière des Rois, the International Museum of the Reformation and the Reformation Wall (International Monument to the Reformation) are sights linked to the life and work of the city's famous reformer. A signposted sightseeing walk "In the footsteps of Reformation" connects the relevant sites. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Noyon, Department Oise, Picardy. John Calvin's birthplace with a museum dedicated to the reformer (Musée Jean Calvin). (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Strasbourg. John Calvin lived in Strasbourg during the time of his banishment from Geneva, 1538–41, and preached at Sainte-Madeleine and St. Nicholas Church and Temple Neuf. Today, neither of these churches is still Calvinist (the first is Catholic and the latter two Lutheran). Strasbourg long was a predominantly Protestant city, surrounded by Catholic countryside. Due to immigration, however, Catholics are now in majority. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Haderslev, South Jutland. From 1523, the town was administered by Prince Christian, the future King Christian III of Denmark and Norway, an ardent follower of Lutheranism, who immediately introduced the Reformation in his fiefdom which therefore became one of the first hotbeds of Protestantism in Denmark, dubbed the "Wittenberg of the North". The beautiful Gothic St Mary's Church (now the Haderslev Cathedral, or Domkirke) became thus the first major Lutheran church in Denmark. (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Viborg. Denmark's prime theological reformer, Hans Tausen, originally a monk of St John's order, was transferred to Viborg in 1525 after he was converted to Lutheranism. His preaching fell on fertile ground among the town's citizenship that officially adopted the new religion in 1529. Tausen mainly preached in the lost St John's church (whose foundations have been rediscovered and excavated), but also in the major Dominican church (Sortebrødre Kirke). The Hans Tausen Memorial Park was created in 1836 to honour the "Danish Luther" with sculptures by Hermann Ernst Freund and Bjørn Nørgaard. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Turku. As the oldest city of Finland, Turku (Åbo) has played a role as the country's Christian center since the Middle Ages. The Turku Cathedral (Turun tuomiokirkko; Åbo domkyrka), the National Sanctuary of Finland, was consecrated in 1300 and is considered to be Finland's most valuable historical monument as well as the mother church of the Lutheran Church of Finland. Mikael Agricola, the de facto founder of literary Finnish and a prominent proponent of the Protestant Reformation in Finland, was consecrated as the Bishop of Turku in 1554, being the first Lutheran Bishop of Finland. The Reformation led, among other things, to the founding of Abo Academy in 1640 to provide theological training for Finnish clergymen. 

• 🌍 Steinvikholmen Castle, Stjørdal (small island, Trondheimsfjord north of Stjørdal village and Trondheim airport, along road E6). Olav Engelbrektsson, the last Catholic archbishop of Norway, fled to this small fortress from his residence at the Nidaros Cathedral (Trondheim). He brought with him St. Olav's shrine with the earthly remains of St. Olav, Norway’s patron saint. In April 1537 the king finally managed to take the fortress and send Olav into exile in Belgium. His exile ended the opposition to the reformation in Norway. 50 NOK. (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Nidaros Cathedral (Nidarosdomen). Nidarosdomen in Trondheim is the second biggest church of Northern Europe and the only major Gothic cathedral in Norway. In Catholic times it was a major pilgrimage site in Northern Europe. Next door is the Archbishop's Palace, residence of the last catholic archbishop of Nidaros (the diocese included Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Orkney, Shetland and Iceland). Nidaros was in the middle ages the name for city now known as Trondheim. 
• 🌍 St. Mary's (ruin) (Mariakirken). The Provost of St. Mary's Church in Oslo also held the office as Chancellor of Norway (from 1314, effectively establishing Oslo as the capital). The institution existed also during the medieval Scandinavian Union. During the Reformation in Denmark-Norway this office was abolished along with the National Council of Norway, effectively moving Norway's capital to Copenhagen. Ruins of the church can be seen in "Old Oslo". 

• 🌍 Uppsala. Uppsala has been the center of Swedish Christianity since 1164, and was before that the religious centre for Nordic paganism in Sweden. The Uppsala Cathedral, was built in the Gothic style in 1273. It is the largest church in the Nordic countries. During the protestant reformation much power and wealth was moved from the church in Uppsala to the King in Stockholm, causing both Uppsala and its university to decline. Uppsala Castle was constructed, partly in order to check Uppsala clergymen who disliked the reformation. Uppsala Synod, the most important church meeting in Swedish history, was held here in 1593. The meeting declared a confession of faith and outlawed non-lutheran Christianity, including other branches of protestantism, as heresy. 

• 🌍 Brașov. Birthplace of the humanist and polymath Johannes Honter (1498–1549) who introduced the Reformation to Transylvania. The remarkable Gothic "Black Church" was converted from a Catholic to a Lutheran one under Honter's aegis. A statue of the reformer stands in front of the church. It was also Honter who founded the library of Brașov in 1547. (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Turda. Turda was one of the meeting places of the Transylvanian Diet. It was here where the Diet adopted the 1568 Edict of Torda, one of the first European documents granting a certain degree of religious freedom. It explicitly mentioned Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Unitarian denominations as "received religions" and allowed preachers in every place to "preach and explain the Gospel each according to his understanding of it". Nowadays, the town has two Reformed churches: a Gothic fortress church and a 16th-century church in New Turda. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Edinburgh. Main scene of the Scottish Reformation around 1560. St Giles’ Cathedral—or the High Kirk of Edinburgh—where John Knox preached is one of the most famous Presbyterian churches of Scotland. The Scottish Reformation Parliament that established the independent Church of Scotland in 1560 took place at Holyrood Palace (Queen Mary was exiled to France at that time). A historic building known as "John Knox's House" is dedicated as a memorial to the reformer, despite only scant evidence for his living (or dying) at this very place. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Debrecen. Historically the most important city of Hungarian Protestanism, Debrecen was known as the "Calvinist Rome" under its bishop Péter Melius Juhász (1532–72). Debrecen's Great Church (built in 1819) has long been considered the symbol of the reformed church in Hungary. The Reformed College, established in 1568, burned down in a town fire and was rebuilt in Classicist style in 1804–16. (updated Dec 2016)

• 🌍 Leiden. Leiden was an important centre of the Dutch reformation, representing both the mainstream Calvinist and the more radical Anabaptist variant (ancestor of today's Mennonites and Baptists). It experienced iconoclasm (Beeldenstorm) in 1566, from which Lucas van Leyden's altarpiece in St Peter's Church, depicting the Last Judgment, could be saved. Of the Vrouwekerk (Our Lady's Church), where Protestant sermonizing began in 1572 and which was attended by many pilgrims who later emigrated to North America, only ruins have survived. The University of Leiden was established by the Reformed Stadtholder William of Orange in 1575. (updated Dec 2016)
• 🌍 Dordrecht. The Gothic Grote Kerk (Great Church) of Dordrecht was converted to Calvinism in 1572. In the same year, the Free States of the Netherlands assembled in Dordrecht to declared their independence from (Catholic) Spain and chose William of Orange as their leader, sparking the Eighty Years War of Independence. This union took place in an Augustinian monastery that now is known as het Hof and includes de Statenzaal ("The Hall of States"). The 1618/19 Synod of Dordrecht of Dutch and international Reformed churches resolved the Canons of Dort, part of the "Three Forms of Unity" that constitute the confessional standards of many Reformed churches, and initiated an official Dutch Bible translation. The synod was opened with a liturgy in the Grote Kerk, while the discussions took place in the Kloveniersdoelen (shooters' guild) building that was demolished by the liberal establishment (despite opposition by orthodox reformists) in 1857, in its place is now the Dordrecht district court. Dutch Mennonites adopted their Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632. (updated Dec 2016)