Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a period of intense religious, political, intellectual, and cultural chaos that fractured Catholic Europe; it officially began in 1517. The period was characterized by a breakdown of religious unity that brought with it a surge of unprecedented violence and destruction. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, the Augustinian monk and professor of ­theology Martin Luther (1483–1546), who questioned Catholic dogma, posted the Ninety-Five Theses (a set of ideas of what was wrong with the Catholic Church/Catholicism) on the doors of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg (located in the Holy Roman Empire during the time, now Germany). At the time of the Protestant Reformation, there was an eruption of various kinds of Christianity; however, before this major event unfolded, there was only ...