Reformation
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Reformation is considered as an overwhelming movement which struck the entire the Europe from the 16th century, thus creating a break-up of the religious unity with the emergence of a newly-defined Christianity.
The significantly increasing criticism of the ChurchÐЎЦs doctrinal views and moral practices during the 14th and 15th centuries proved to be somewhat favorable to the development of the Reformation. The German theologian Martin Luther was the first to question and dispute several values of the sacraments, as he witnessed that a number of Christians just simply accepted the contents in the Bible, and worshipped the actions performed by the priests blindly. RietbergenÐЎЦs book indicated that Luther further argued about the concept of free will: only a personÐЎЦs faith, given him by the mercy of God at the beginning of creation, will save him from damnation, if that is, he lives according to it .
Luther and his fellow critics also condemned many of the ChurchÐЎЦs practices, the first to be criticized, is the phenomenon of the sale of the indulgences and monasterial administrative positions, plus the Church tithes being exerted upon the people, from which the Church gained enormous wealth. The Lutheran ideas spread rapidly throughout Germany and into the Low Countries, which then came the new born Protestantism. The reason why theyÐЎЦre being so easily accepted and widely spread, besides taking the advantage of printing and the traveling book sellers , was that the Church itself became no longer tolerable by the people, with so many unfairly wealth-collecting behaviors and clergies with low intellectual and spiritual levels.
The unrest in the Holy Roman Empire was another reason for the survival of the Protestantism. Spain was the strongest among all in Europe. Carlos I became the Spanish king in 1517, and then the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1519, for which his title was then Karl V. He remained staunch Roman Catholic, and tried to stifle Martin Luther and the Protestants, but failed, due to the warfare with France. Meanwhile, internal disorders in England and Germany also made them unable to focus on stopping the movement of reformation.
While Martin Luther was the one who laid the foundation of the Reformation, the key role in the second wind of the movement, French evangelic John Calvin developed his own way of Church organization which made Protestantism a permanent force in Western and Northern Europe.
The Reformation was later taken up by a number of European princes, who were, in one way, concerned about their people being mislead by the Church, in another way theyÐЎЦre not willing to see the Church power far exceed theirs. By taking the advantage of the prevailing climate of protest of the Protestants, they demanded more independence, eventually less bounded to the papacy. That lead to a new situation which France and Spain remained Catholic; Denmark, Sweden and Germany jumped over to the Reformation, thus becoming the Protestant states. Speaking of the process of modernization, northwestern Europe (Protestants) did better than the Catholics in the southwestern Europe.
The political situation became even more complex between the ÐÐŽÐÒreformedÐЎЦ states and the states which remained Catholic after the Reformation. The conflicts grew more and more intense and there were numerous religious wars, among which the Thirty YearsÐЎЦ war was considered the biggest