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Reformation Day: Why Do Protestants Celebrate October 31?

2020-10-31T08:38:43.482Z


October 31 is a public holiday in nine federal states. What is Reformation Day about? The overview.


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Luther monument in Wittenberg

Photo: Jens Wolf / picture alliance / dpa

What was the trigger for the Reformation?

According to tradition, the Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) posted his 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, one day before All Saints' Day.

Historians doubt that Luther personally picked up hammer and nail.

But the picture symbolizes the great importance of the publication of the theses: It accelerated the process in the course of which many believers broke away from the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

The Protestant churches were formed.

Luther's theses were primarily directed against the abuse of the medieval indulgence trade: believers could reduce their penalties for sin by purchasing letters of indulgence.

The church managed well with the income; the Pope, for example, financed the construction of the new St.

Luther protested against this abuse of power and the secularization of the church and published further writings.

Only God's grace can save the believer, said the reformer.

And only the Bible is authoritative for the Christian doctrine of the faith, not the traditional teaching of the church.

How did the Reformation develop?

Thanks to the new technique of printing with movable type, Luther's works quickly spread and sparked a Reformation movement.

Since Luther did not want to revoke his theses, the Pope excluded him and his followers from the church in 1520.

Luther did not want to bow to the emperor either.

"Here I stand, I can't help it," he is said to have said at the Worms Reichstag, according to legend.

Thereupon the emperor imposed the imperial ban on the reformer.

Luther was thus outlawed; anyone could now kill him with impunity.

With the help of his supporter, the Elector of Saxony, Luther was able to hide in the Wartburg.

As Junker Jörg, he worked there on his greatest work without being recognized: he translated the New Testament into German.

His style shapes our language to this day.

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Theses door on the castle church in Wittenberg

Photo: Peter Endig / picture alliance / Peter Endig / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa

A Reformation movement of its own developed in Switzerland, initiated by Huldrych Zwingli and Johannes Calvin.

From this emerged the Reformed Church, which was later to form a further Protestant denomination alongside the Lutheran Church.

The Reformed branch of Protestantism spread to Scotland and the USA, the Lutheran branch to Scandinavia.

What were the political consequences?

The Reformation (lat. Reformatio "redesign", "renewal") not only sealed the division of the church, the political map of the Holy Roman Empire also changed forever: more and more imperial princes turned away from the pope and emperor by adopting the Enforced the Reformation and transformed their countries into secular principalities.

At the Diet of Speyer in 1529, the Protestant princes protested for their freedom of belief, and the term "Protestantism" was born.

With the "Confessio Augustana" the princes made a creed at the Augsburg Reichstag in 1530, but this was not recognized by Emperor Charles V.

They then formed a protective alliance against the emperor, the Schmalkaldic League.

In the Schmalkaldic War, the alliance was defeated by imperial troops in 1547.

In 1555, the various camps agreed in the Augsburg Religious Peace that each prince was allowed to decide on the denomination in his rulership.

The law brought the empire a long, but not lasting, peace.

The religious differences, together with political causes, ultimately led to the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), which plunged the whole of Europe into catastrophe.

At the end of this, the Augsburg religious peace was finally confirmed.

Since when has the Reformation Day been celebrated?

In 1667 the Elector of Saxony designated October 31 as the day of remembrance of the Reformation - 150 years after the publication of Luther's theses.

Since then, German Protestants have celebrated their faith on this day.

In Germany, Reformation Day was only a public holiday in the eastern federal states until 2018.

Since then it has also been in Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.

In 2017 it was a public holiday in all of Germany due to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

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Source: spiegel

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