How Martin Luther's 95 Theses began...
I chose this topic for my National History Day Project. It is about how Martin Luther's Nintey-Five Theses change how people saw religion and began the Protestant Reformation.Before Luther posted his theses he began questioning the Catholic practice of selling, "Indulgences," to absolve people from sin. He was a monk and a Bible Professor when Pope Leo X began launching a campaign to sell indulgences to raise funds for the continued constructing of the Basillica in Rome. It was for Saint Peter, and the Pope in his extravagance had wasted all the money in the Church's treasury. Luther, in an angry response to the indulgence sales, wrote the nintey-five theses and nailed them to the Church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. Wittenberg was known as an emerging University Town and Luther was a professor there. Lots of educated people nailed arguments up for discussion to the Church door back then, so Luther did not know his would have such a huge impact. In the time that Luther posted the theses, the Church's doors served as the University bulletin board. Luther's argument was condemned as heresy because it was going against the beliefs of the Church. Later, Luther had a hearing with Charles V, the nineteen year old Emperor of Rome, at the Diet Worm, questioning his Theses posted on the Church doors. There had to be a unanimous vote to condemn him to be tried and executed by the Church, and there wasn't. On his way home Prince Fredrick the Wise kidnapped Luther and kept him in a Castle for about three years so the Church would not kill him anyway. While there, Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin to German so common people could read it too.
And Never Ended...
The nintey-five theses caused The Protestant Reformation. Luther's writing was so popular that others began to question the authority of the Catholic Church. Protestantism began sprouting up all over Europe. The impact Luther had on ideas involving religious freedom never really ended. The liberty to worship as we choose still goes on to this day. Churches are what they are today because of how the debate over the theses began and these debates are not so much still going on, but it is just taken for granted that we can worship as we choose and no one stand between us as individuals and God. Churches still go by Martin Luther's words today.