Notes

INTRODUCTION
The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement driven by the German theologian and priest Martin Luther, which began in 1517. He criticized the corruption of the Pope and called for a return to the words, to the Holy Scriptures of the Bible. This protest became known as Protestantism, which led to a surge of religious wars, peasant uprisings, and other reformist movements.
THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION
In 1517, a major scandal erupted in Germany over the issue of indulgences. For Luther, indulgences were a scam and a deception of believers regarding the salvation of their souls, as they were a remission by which people could, after death, free themselves from all or part of the punishment they would receive for their sins. It was here that Luther, in 1517, nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, where he attacked indulgences and outlined what would become his doctrine of salvation by faith alone.
The 95 theses quickly spread throughout Germany, thanks to the printing press, and Luther became a hero to all those who desired reform within the Catholic Church. In some places, even attacks on buildings and properties of the Catholic Church began. Thanks to his 95 theses, Luther had become the symbol of Germany's rebellion against what they considered the arrogance of the Catholic Church. Luther also risked his life as he could be declared a heretic by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and sentenced to the stake.
Finally, the Pope declared Luther a heretic and excommunicated him, meaning he was declared separated from the community of the Catholic Church.
The Reformation had several facets. In Germany, Scandinavia, and the Baltic, Luther and his teachings dominated. In other countries, the ideas of reformers like John Calvin (France/Switzerland) and Ulrich Zwingli (Switzerland) gave rise to the Reformed Church.
In 1519, Zwingli preached the reforming doctrine in Zurich, Switzerland. King Charles V became the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1522, Anabaptism was founded, a Protestant religious doctrine originating in Germany and the Low Countries. It was characterized by the belief that faith alone justifies man because it did not recognize the efficacy of infant baptism and required the baptism of adults who were baptized before they were aware of the sacrament's significance. It was founded as a result of Zwingli's call for reform.
Between 1524 and 1525, the Peasants' War erupted in the Holy Roman Empire, a peasant uprising or revolt.
In 1536, King Henry VIII created the Church of England after renouncing Roman Catholicism in 1534.
In 1537, after Zwingli's death, John Calvin was invited to Geneva to lead the Reformed Church. This was followed by a power struggle.
The Council of Trent marked the beginning of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in 1545. The Counter-Reformation was a Papist movement in response to the Protestant Reformation that sought to reaffirm traditional Catholic beliefs in papal authority and medieval Christian faith.
It presented itself as the authentic and true form of Christian worship, seeking to address the criticisms of Luther and other Protestant thinkers, which they considered heresies or deviations from the Christian faith.
From the Council of Trent, new disciplinary measures were established for Catholic priests, and the actions of ancient Catholic orders, such as the Discalced Carmelites and the Society of Jesus, were also reinforced.
In 1546, when Charles V could address the Protestant issue, the Reformation had already solidified its foundations. To defend their interests against the emperor, German Protestant princes joined the League of Smalkald. Hostilities ended in 1555 with the signing of the Peace of Augsburg.
Shortly thereafter, John Calvin became the official leader of the Swiss Protestant Reformation.
After several years, Ferdinand I succeeded Charles V as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Between 1559 and 1562, several acts of faith were held in Valladolid and Seville against people accused of sympathizing with Protestant ideas. Hundreds of them ended up on the stake, although some managed to escape.
On September 1, 1558, the Inquisitor General Don Fernando de Valdés wrote a letter to Pope Paul IV, in which he provided detailed information about the religious situation in Spain. In those years, the Protestant Reformation, initiated by Luther in 1517, had succeeded in many parts of Christendom, from Germany and Switzerland to Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries; even in nations like Italy and France, the Lutheran heretics...
Between 1618 and 1648, the Thirty Years' War began as a religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, but it turned into a global confrontation where the sides were formed based on political interests, causing the death of a quarter of the German population, with religious and brutal violence, famines, and plagues. Entire regions of central Europe were devastated in a continuous movement of large armies, and many took decades to fully recover.
Neither the Catholics nor the Protestants could win this war, as it concluded with the Peace of Westphalia, which established state sovereignty throughout Europe, simply declaring an end to hostilities without declaring a victor. And the Holy Roman Emperor lost the Catholic control of the European continent.
All of these processes marked the end of the Protestant Reformation.
Next, we will look at the key figures, a bit about them, and the Five Solas.
THE FIVE SOLAS
The word "Sola" comes from Latin and means "Only" or "Alone."
The Five Solas are five beliefs that summarize the 95 theses that Martin Luther nailed to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral on October 31, 1517, and that form the basis of the Christian faith in the Reformed Church.
They are as follows:
1. Sola Scriptura or Scripture Alone: This means that only the Holy Bible is the ultimate authority for faith and conduct for Christians.
2. Sola Fide or Faith Alone: It means that we are saved by faith alone, not by works, but for good works.
3. Solus Christus or Christ Alone: It means that only Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and Man.
4. Sola Gratia or Grace Alone: Grace means undeserved favor. We are saved by the merits of Christ, not by our own. Salvation is a gift from God. In Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 8-9, it says: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast."
5. Soli Deo Gloria or Glory to God Alone: The purpose of our salvation is to give glory to God and God alone. In Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 6, it says: "To the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."
MARTIN LUTHER
Martin Luther was a German priest, monk, and theologian, a central figure in the religious and cultural movement known as the Protestant Reformation. Although other reformers had expressed similar views before Luther, his charismatic personality and the efficient use of the printing press stimulated the widespread acceptance of his vision of Christianity.
He was born into a lower-class family in 1483 in Eisleben, in what is now Germany, part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time. His parents were prosperous peasants; his father was not tied to the land as a farmer but owned several copper mines.
Luther was the oldest of several siblings, and his father hoped that he would become a lawyer and rise in social status through education. He initially studied in Magdeburg and Eisenach before entering the University of Erfurt in 1501 at the age of 17. He struggled with his studies and abandoned them altogether. He attempted to find meaning in his life, which led him to philosophy, but he found no satisfaction. Ultimately, he decided to study theology, combining "Theo" meaning GOD and "Logy" meaning Study, meaning the study of God.
JOHN CALVIN
John Calvin was a French theologian and one of the initiators of the Protestant Reformation. He was born on July 10, 1509, in Noyon, France. He was the son of Jeanne Lefran and Gerard Calvin, a lawyer who worked for the government, particularly with the Roman Catholic Church. He had an older and a younger brother. His mother died when he was a child, and his father remarried and had two more daughters. He received education for the priesthood at the College de Montaigne. Since his father wanted him to pursue a legal career rather than theology, he attended the universities of Orleans and Bourges. He broke away from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530 due to religious tensions and widespread violence against Protestants in France. He also studied Greek Bible.
His association with Cop, who had just been elected rector of the University of Paris, forced both of them to flee when Cop announced his support for Martin Luther in 1535. Calvin adopted the broad themes of Lutheran theology: denial of the authority of the Church in Rome by divine right, denial of apostolic succession from the Apostle Peter, and giving primary importance to the Bible as the only rule of faith and conduct.
CALVINISM
The system of Protestantism founded by Calvin, known as Calvinism, expressed the demands of the most audacious part of the bourgeoisie at that time. The foundation of Calvinism lies in the doctrine that certain people are predestined by God for "Salvation," while others are predestined for "Condemnation." Calvinism legitimized the bourgeois entrepreneurial spirit of the time of the original accumulation of capital. This was expressed in the fact that temperance and thrift were declared cardinal virtues and an ascetic civic regime was advocated.
Years later, his wife, Idelette de Bure, died in 1549, and he did not remarry. Although he received a house and salary from the government, he held no official position and did not become a citizen of Geneva until 1559.
He was the drafter of the draft of the new ordinances that the government would modify and adapt as the constitution of Geneva.
In 1559, he inaugurated the academy with Theodore Beza as rector.
He was also a hymn composer. Finally, he died on May 27, 1564.
JOHN WYCLIFFE
John Wycliffe was born in Hipswell, Yorkshire in 1320. He was an English theologian who defended the authority of the monarchy against Roman claims and advocated for the secularization of ecclesiastical property. He taught theology at Oxford, where he drafted a Church summa, promoted the translation of the Bible into English, and trained preachers who preached religious and social egalitarianism based solely on biblical texts. When the Great Western Schism occurred, he conceived the idea of a church separate from the papacy. He condemned indulgences and supported the supreme and exclusive authority of the Scriptures. He inclined in favor of peasants, which increased his popularity but also made him suspicious to the crown. After his death in May 1415, his doctrines would be condemned at the Council of Constance.
Forty-three years after his death, in 1428, officials exhumed his body, burned everything they found, which was all his remains, and threw the ashes into the Swift River, yet they couldn't get rid of him. His teachings persisted.