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Break in the unity of the church
- The result was a schism, or break in the unity of the church, that divided Christianity into Western (Roman Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) branches.
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Towards the end of the Renaissance, the Reformation marked the beginning of Protestantism and in turn resulted in a major schism within Western Christianity. [2] It is considered one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe. [3]
Having far-reaching political, economic, and social effects, the Reformation became the basis for the founding of Protestantism, one of the three major branches of Christianity. The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from which the 16th-century reformers emerged was a complex one.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Reformation is said to have begun when Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on...
- The Reformation became the basis for the founding of Protestantism, one of the three major branches of Christianity. The Reformation led to the ref...
- The greatest leaders of the Reformation undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Martin Luther precipitated the Reformation with his critiqu...
Feb 17, 2011 · The Great Schism saw two, even three individuals claiming to be the Pope, and the Council of Constance in the early fifteenth century saw a power struggle between Bishops and Pope.
- Overview
- From the schism to the Reformation
A major factor in the consolidation and expansion of Christianity in the West was the growth in the prestige and power of the bishop of Rome. The pope St. Leo I made the primacy of the Roman bishop explicit both in theory and in practice and must be counted as one of the most important figures in the history of the centralization of authority in the church. The next such figure was the pope St. Gregory I the Great, whose work shaped the worship, the thought, and the structure of the church as well as its temporal wealth and power. Although some of Gregory’s successors advocated papal primacy, it was the popes of the 11th century and thereafter who sought to exploit claims of papal authority over the church hierarchy and over all Christians.
Even while still a part of the universal church, Byzantine Christianity had become increasingly isolated from the West by difference of language, culture, politics, and religion and followed its own course in shaping its heritage. The Eastern churches never had so centralized a polity as did the church in the West but developed the principle of the administrative independence, or “autocephaly,” of each national church. During the centuries when Western culture was striving to domesticate the German tribes, Constantinople, probably the most civilized city in Christendom, blended classical and Christian elements with a refinement that expressed itself in philosophy, the arts, statecraft, jurisprudence, and scholarship. A thinker such as Michael Psellus in the 11th century, who worked in several of these fields, epitomizes this synthesis. It was from Byzantine rather than Roman missionaries that Christianity came to most of the Slavic peoples, including some who eventually sided with Rome rather than Constantinople (see also Eastern rite church). Byzantium was also the victim of Muslim aggressions throughout the period known in the West as the Middle Ages. Following the pattern established by the emperors Constantine and Justinian, the relation between church and state in the Byzantine empire coordinated the two in such a way as to sometimes subject the life and even the teaching of the church to the decisions of the temporal ruler—the phenomenon often, though imprecisely, termed caesaropapism.
A major factor in the consolidation and expansion of Christianity in the West was the growth in the prestige and power of the bishop of Rome. The pope St. Leo I made the primacy of the Roman bishop explicit both in theory and in practice and must be counted as one of the most important figures in the history of the centralization of authority in the church. The next such figure was the pope St. Gregory I the Great, whose work shaped the worship, the thought, and the structure of the church as well as its temporal wealth and power. Although some of Gregory’s successors advocated papal primacy, it was the popes of the 11th century and thereafter who sought to exploit claims of papal authority over the church hierarchy and over all Christians.
Even while still a part of the universal church, Byzantine Christianity had become increasingly isolated from the West by difference of language, culture, politics, and religion and followed its own course in shaping its heritage. The Eastern churches never had so centralized a polity as did the church in the West but developed the principle of the administrative independence, or “autocephaly,” of each national church. During the centuries when Western culture was striving to domesticate the German tribes, Constantinople, probably the most civilized city in Christendom, blended classical and Christian elements with a refinement that expressed itself in philosophy, the arts, statecraft, jurisprudence, and scholarship. A thinker such as Michael Psellus in the 11th century, who worked in several of these fields, epitomizes this synthesis. It was from Byzantine rather than Roman missionaries that Christianity came to most of the Slavic peoples, including some who eventually sided with Rome rather than Constantinople (see also Eastern rite church). Byzantium was also the victim of Muslim aggressions throughout the period known in the West as the Middle Ages. Following the pattern established by the emperors Constantine and Justinian, the relation between church and state in the Byzantine empire coordinated the two in such a way as to sometimes subject the life and even the teaching of the church to the decisions of the temporal ruler—the phenomenon often, though imprecisely, termed caesaropapism.
- Dating the Reformation. Historians usually date the start of the Protestant Reformation to the 1517 publication of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses.” Its ending can be placed anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany, to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War.
- The Reformation: Germany and Lutheranism. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was an Augustinian monk and university lecturer in Wittenberg when he composed his “95 Theses,” which protested the pope’s sale of reprieves from penance, or indulgences.
- The Reformation: Switzerland and Calvinism. The Swiss Reformation began in 1519 with the sermons of Ulrich Zwingli, whose teachings largely paralleled Luther’s.
- The Reformation: England and the 'Middle Way' In England, the Reformation began with Henry VIII’s quest for a male heir. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could remarry, the English king declared in 1534 that he alone should be the final authority in matters relating to the English church.
Jun 4, 2020 · The Reformation was a schism in the Catholic Church during the 16th century, which had major political, economic and religious implications and led to the creation of Protestant Christianity.
Nov 10, 2021 · The Protestant Reformation completely changed the European cultural, religious, social, and political landscape and is often referred to as the birth of the modern age as it coincided with and was encouraged by the Renaissance of the 15th-16th centuries.