Martin : of the Authority 1 A) Background: a) Attempts to resist the Church authority: Marsiglio of Padua initiated the fight against the Roman Church by the end of the Middle Age in . During the the fight was taken to a new height by Machiavelli, who denounced any political role of the Roman . However, both these attempts to resist the Church authority were made from outside the Church. b) Discontent of the German bourgeoisie about the Church: In , the emerging bourgeoisie were highly dissatisfied with the role of the Roman Catholic Church. Although the Church itself was immersed into opulence, yet they preached the message of austerity among the masses, impacting negatively the commercial interests of the capitalists. Moreover, in the early sixteenth century the Roman Catholic Church was conducting a special fund-raising drive in Germany to build the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. c) Sale of : As part of their fund-raising drive the Roman Catholic Church used to sale indulgences among the Christians. The Church claimed that they had surplus virtues accumulated from the holy lives of and other saints belonging to their monastic order. The Church began selling those surplus virtues to the sinners, who were ready to purchase them with a hefty sum to get rid of their without doing any . This facilitated a steady outflow of the resources from Germany to Italy, reducing further the purchasing power of the German people. B) Martin Luther and the Reformation Movement: a) Personal details: Born: 10 November, 1483, , present-day Germany – Died: 18 February, 1546, Eisleben, present-day Germany. Luther became a member of the monastic order of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. However, dissatisfied with the ideas and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, Luther revolted against it in 1517. As a consequence Luther was expelled from the Catholic Church. Then he founded the Lutheran or Protestant Church. b) Relevant works: Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences , or in short Ninety-Five Thesis , 1517, and Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants , 1525. c) Protesting against the practices of the Catholic Church: Luther considered the selling of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church as a fraud, as he believed only God had the power to pardon a sinner, not the Church. Thus, he denounced such practices conducted by a Church Tetzel in , Germany. As a mark of protest Luther along with his followers stormed the Church of Wittenberg and nailed on its doors his proclamation in the form of ‘ninety-five thesis’ on 31 October, 1517. Very soon the protests spread across Germany and beyond. d) Critiquing the ideas of the Catholic Church: Luther critiqued some of the core ideas preached by the Roman Catholic Church. Luther rejected the ubiquitous role of the Church as a mediator between God and the believers, or as provider of salvation to the faithful. Luther proclaimed that being the children of God all Christians were entitled to establish direct contacts with God. And everybody was directly accountable to God for his or her individual deeds and was entitled to receive God’s grace accordingly. He also announced that the real church existed not in the external ecumenical hierarchy and of the Roman Catholic Church, but rather in the burning love and devotion for God in the hearts of the faithful Christians. This way, Luther sought to demystify the authority of the Church of Rome prevailing for centuries over the entire European and democratize its foundation by acknowledging the worth of every faithful Christian in the divine world. e) Foundation of the Lutheran Church: As a consequence of his revolt Luther was expelled from the Roman Catholic Church and persecuted. He founded the Lutheran Church along with his followers, which soon spread across Germany and in other parts of Europe, like England, Scotland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian states. Luther’s initiative to the religious doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church was named as the Reformation Movement. The implications of this movement surpassed well beyond the confines of religious domain and impacted the socio-political equations of Europe in the 16 th century. And the movement was actively endorsed by the German bourgeoisie and their collaborators, the secular rulers of Germany. f) Views on the secular authority: Luther could sustain the sanctions imposed on him by the Roman Catholic Church because he got the crucial support of the German bourgeoisie and the secular political authorities there. Luther’s views on the nature and extent of the secular authorities are testimonies to support he had received from them. He proclaimed that the king was the representative of God on earth, and even the church fell under his jurisdiction. He argued every devout Christian should pay unrestrained allegiance to the king. And he insisted that even when the king had committed any wrong, a true Christian should never oppose him, instead he should pray to God so that He may rectify the ruler. Luther even gave the ruler the authority to proselytize non-Christians into by coercion, if necessary. h) Views on the peasant revolt in Germany: Contrary to the expectations of the Anabaptists, a leftist group of followers of his radical religious ideas, Luther initially persuaded in vain the revolting German peasants in 1525 to adopt moderate means, and eventually advised the German rulers to crush them violently to maintain the integrity of German nation state.

1 Prepared by Sandipan Sen for PLSA – I CC 2 Module 1 Topic 5 C) Critical appreciation: Critics accuse Luther of self-contradiction. However, Luther’s attempts to democratize the Church authority and deify the king, both were instrumental to safeguard the interests of the bourgeoisie and strengthen the foundation of nation states in Germany and other parts of Europe. Thus ultimately they were complementary to each other.