John Calvin played an important role in the period known in Western European history as the Reformation. What started as an attempt to reform the Christian faith soon took on grim political streaks.
Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century intellectuals such as Jan Hus and John Wycliffe had already attempted to reform the Catholic Church from within. For Jan Hus in particular, his criticism of practices within the Church ended badly. In 1415 he was burned alive for heresy. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new generation of reformers emerged who were more energetic.
When the German priest Martin Luther visited Rome in 1510, decadence and corruption were at their heyday in the Holy City. He saw priests visiting brothels and indulgences sold even to terrified relatives of the dead, just to secure them a place in heaven. Those who paid enough could even buy the office of priest.
Luther expressed his criticism in pamphlets that he distributed in his home city of Wittenberg. He also summarized his ideas about what was wrong in the Catholic Church in 95 theses that he – rebellious as he was – prominently nailed on the door of the city's cathedral.
Luther's criticism focused primarily on the corruption of the clergy. He also believed that the Bible should also be available in languages other than Latin. An idea that is still at the heart of the Reformation but was not as new as is often thought.
The printing press, invented recently, allowed Luther's ideas to spread quickly. Other prominent Christian thinkers, such as the Swiss Ulrich Zwingli and the Frenchman John Calvin, were convinced, like Luther, that something had to change within Christianity. At that time, these thinkers had no plans to leave the Catholic Church and establish new denominations. However, fierce discussions soon arose about which way to go with the organization of the faith.
Blood and body
Does free will exist? Do the wine and bread really change into the blood and body of Christ during the Eucharistic celebration? During the sixteenth century, it was religious disputes that had a major impact on politics in Europe. In fact, the Catholic dogma that the bread and wine actually turned into the body and blood of Christ (if administered by a priest) was such an important part of Catholic theology that Luther's rejection of it sparked large-scale political action. upheavals in almost all of Europe.
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In 1529 Luther proposed to the seat of the Holy Roman Empire to reject the dogma of the Eucharist henceforth. A definitive break with the Catholic Church in Rome would therefore be inevitable. Because Luther had also included in his theology that the Pope should not concern himself with political matters, many regional German princes liked the new Christian doctrine.
These rulers wanted to be masters in their own house and to get rid of the Roman meddling in their politics. Luther received a lot of support, especially in the north of the Empire. The religious disputes almost immediately translated into political tensions throughout the empire.
Religion and politics were extremely closely intertwined in the early modern period. Within a short time, Europe became divided into supporters of Protestantism and Catholicism, of preservation and reform, of those in power who tried to take advantage of the new developments and those who wanted to preserve the status quo.
As a result of these tensions, the Thirty Years' War between 1618 and 1648 tore the Holy Roman Empire apart. In almost every European country, somewhere in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a religious war raged as a direct or indirect result of this interaction between religion and politics. The Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands was just one of many.
Because of the close connection between religion and politics in early modern Europe, the Protestant reform movement within the once powerful Roman Catholic Church is an important development in Western European history. Subtle disagreements over the interpretation of the Bible and the implementation of the Christian faith led to wars and political upheavals that continue to create tensions to this day.
Think, for example, of the controversial Orange Marches in Belfast in Northern Ireland, where Protestants celebrate the victories of ('our') William III from 1688 to 1690 over the Catholic English king James II.
There are regular disturbances during the Orange Marches, often resulting in injuries. And to think that it all started with the question whether bread and wine can really turn into the body and blood of Christ.