Religious Reformation and Counter-Reformation
This work is intended to explain what was theReform Church , report the main facts about these reforms, its key employees and when they occurred. Reforms were religious movements, which led to the revolution of the Church, has its beginnings dating back to the sixteenth century, but the explanations for these revolutions have existed for centuries.
Reform Background
Since the revival of the Holy Roman Empire by Otto I in 962, popes and emperors engaged in a continuous struggle for supremacy. This conflict usually resulted in victories for the papal party, but created a bitter antagonism between Rome and the German Empire, which increased with the development of a nationalist sentiment in Germany during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
In the fourteenth century English reformer John Wycliffe distinguished himself by translating the Bible, challenge the pontifical authority and censor the cult of holy relics.
The Western Schism (1378-1417) severely weakened papal authority and made urgent the need to reform the Church. The Renaissanceand the invention of printing reignited criticism of the Church: the corruption and hypocrisy of the clergy in general and, in particular, ignorance and superstition of the mendicant orders; the ambition of the Popes, whose temporal power originated divisions among believers; and theology of the schools responsible for misrepresentation and dehumanization of the Christian message.
The implementation in 1415 of the Hus accused of heresy fire led directly to the Hussite wars, a violent expression of Bohemian nationalism, suppressed with difficulty by the allied forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope. These wars were a precursor of religious civil war in Germany in Luther's time.
These criticisms were made by some of the humanists who sought to reconcile the humanist movement with the message of Scripture, criticizing some church practices.
These criticisms formed the basis for Martin Luther and John Calvin to cry in the Bible, more than the Church as the source of all religious authority.
National Movements
The Protestant Reformation began in Germany when Luther published the "95 Theses", transforming the theory and practice of indulgences.
Germany and the Reformation
Luther shared the need for an inner religion, based on communion of the soul, humble and receptive to God. With a very personal interpretation, Luther argued that the man only by his works, is unable to sanctify and that is the act of believing, that is, by faith, that comes to sanctification. Only faith makes the just man, not being good enough works to erase the sins and guarantee salvation.
The excommunication by Pope Martin Luther broke the unity of the Western Church and began a period of wars that opposed the Emperor Charles V and some German princes. The condemnation of Luther in Worms Diet and its banishment divided Germany into economic and religious borders. On the one hand, those who wanted to preserve the traditional order, including the emperor and the high clergy, supported the Roman Catholic Church. On the other, supporters of Lutheranism - the Northern princes of Germany, the lower clergy, the bourgeois groups and large sections of peasants - who welcomed the change as an opportunity to increase their authority in religious and economic, appropriating the Church property.
Intermittent periods of religious civil war ended with the Peace of Augsburg. This treaty decided that each of the governors of the German states, which formed about 300 states, would choose between Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism and subordinated the religious option to the prince's authority.Lutheranism, espoused by half of the German population, finally receive official recognition, but the old religious unity of the Christian community in Western Europe under the supreme pontifical authority was destroyed.
The Switzerland
The reform movement in Switzerland Reform of contemporary Germany, was conducted by the Swiss pastor Ulrich Zwingli, who, in 1518, was known for his vigorous denunciation to the sale of indulgences. He considered the Bible the only source of moral authority and sought to eliminate everything that existed in the Roman Catholic system that did not obtain specifically the Scriptures.
This movement has spread across the Swiss territory, creating a conflict between 1529-1531. Peace allowed the religious choice of each person. Roman Catholicism prevailed in the mountainous provinces of the country and Protestantism implanted in major cities and fertile valleys.
After generation of Luther and Zwingli, the dominant figure of the Reformation was Calvin, a French Protestant theologian, who fled persecution in France and settled in the new independent republic of Geneva in 1536. Although church and state are officially separate, cooperated so closely that Geneva was virtually a theocracy. To strengthen the moral discipline, Calvin instituted a rigid inspection of household conduct and organized a consistory, composed of pastors and lay people, with a great power compulsive on communities. The clothing and personal behavior of citizens were prescribed to the last detail: dancing, playing cards, dice and other entertainment were banned and blasphemy and severely punished inappropriate language.Under this severe regime, nonconformists were persecuted and sometimes put to death.
Citizens had at least an elementary education.In 1559, Calvin founded the University of Geneva, famous for training pastors and teachers. More than any other reformer Calvin organized the Protestant thought in a clear, logical system. The diffusion of his works, his influence as an educator and his great Church organizer of skill and reformist state created a movement of international fans and gave the Reformist Churches, according to the term as the Protestant Churches were known in Switzerland, France and Scotland, an entirely Calvinistic nature, whether in religion or in the organization. To encourage reading and understanding the Bible.
The France
The Reformation began in France in the early sixteenth century through some mystical and humanist groups that joined in Meaux, near Paris, under the leadership of Lefèvre d'Etaples. As Luther d'Étaples studied the Epistles of St. Paul and made derive their belief in justification of individual faith, denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1523, he translated into French the New Testament.
At first, his writings were welcomed by the church and the state, but from the moment that the radical doctrines of Luther began to spread in France, the Lefèvre's work was seen as similar and his followers were persecuted .Mutual persecutions between Catholics and Huguenots originated episodes as the St. Bartholomew massacre on the night of 23 to 24 August 1572, during which they murdered Protestants who were in Paris to attend the wedding of Henry IV. The war ended with the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which granted freedom of worship to the Huguenots. In 1685, Louis XIV repeal this edict expelling the country's Protestants.
England
The English revolt against Rome differs from Germany riots, Switzerland and France in two respects.
First, England was a united nation with a strong central government, so, instead of dividing the country into factions or regional parties and end a civil war, the revolt was national - the king and Parliament acted together transferring to the crown the ecclesiastical jurisdiction previously exercised by the Pope.
Second, in the continental countries, popular agitation aimed at religious reformation preceded and caused a political break with the papacy. In England, on the contrary, the political break was given first as a result of Henry VIII's decision to divorce his first wife, and the change in religious doctrine came later, in the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I. After divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn, but in 1533, the pope excommunicated him. In 1534, through the Act of Supremacy, Parliament recognized the crown as head of the Church of England and between 1536 to 1539 the monasteries were suppressed and their properties attached by the king and distributed by adept nobility of reform.
Reform Consequences
Despite the diversity of the revolutionary forces of the sixteenth century, the Reformation had large and consistent results in Western Europe.In general, the power and the wealth lost by the feudal nobility and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church were transferred to the new social groups on the rise and the crown.Various regions of Europe have their political, religious and cultural independence. Even in countries like France and the current region Belgium, where Roman Catholicism prevailed, a new individualism and nationalism were developed in culture and politics. The destruction of the medieval authority freed trade and financial activities of religious restrictions and promoted capitalism. During the Reformation, the national languages and literature were stimulated through the dissemination of religious texts written in the mother tongue, and not in Latin. The education of the people was also stimulated by the new schools founded by Colet in England, Calvin in Geneva and the Protestant princes in Germany.Religion is no longer the monopoly of a privileged minority clerical and became a more direct expression of popular beliefs. However, religious intolerance remained unshaken and different churches continue to pursue am each other, at least for more than a century.
The Catholic Counter-Reformation
Comprises all the measures adopted by the Church by Pope Paul III authority in 1545, to defend themselves, as internal reforms, the foundation of the Society of Jesus and the Council of Trent. Creates new ecclesiastical orders, such as the teatinos, Capuchins, barbabitas, Ursuline and Oratorians.
Council of Trent - From 1545 to 1563, called by Paul III to ensure the unity of faith and ecclesiastical discipline. Regulates the obligations of bishops and confirms the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Seminars are created as priestly training centers and recognizes the pope's superiority over the conciliar assembly. They are also restored the courts of the Inquisition, that would operate mainly in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal under the name of the Holy Office, judging and condemning infidelity accused Christians, heresy, schism, magic, polygamy, abuse of the sacraments etc. It set the index of prohibited books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) and reorganized the Inquisition.
Society of Jesus - Founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola. With military organization and strict discipline, puts himself unconditionally to the pope 's service. Plays a key role in the renewal of the Church in the fight against heretics and evangelization of Asia and the Americas.
Thirty Years ' War - is the first great European war. It begins in 1618 as a religious conflict involving Catholics and Protestants and get political character around the contradictions between territorial states and princes. It involves Austria, Hungary, Spain, Holland, Denmark, France and Sweden, among others.It ends in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, in which the freedoms of Calvinists and other Protestants are recognized. The devastation in Germany, the reduction of the population, the spread of barbarism and the bloody repression of women accused of witchcraft facilitate the restoration of the empire by the princes.Disappears the hegemony of the Habsburgs.Portugal, Austria and the Netherlands win independence. France, Sweden, Bavaria and Prussia extend its territorial areas at the expense of Germany.
Conclusion
Religious Reforms formed joint movements with a religious character, political and economic, which challenged the Catholic dogmas, and because of this it occurred to the creation of other religions such as Protestant.
Christians objected to this situation, they felt the need for a return to the teachings of Christ and his apostles preached and thus a reform of customs. The reformers were Martin Luther and John Calvin.
The Reformation spread rapidly in Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland and Scandinavia.
The difficulty was that the Church recognized these abuses, but did not dare to undertake the necessary overhaul.
And because of this, there were several conflicts between the Church and its reformers.
Category: General history
