Martin Luther
...Catholic Church, the reigning power of Western Europe for hundreds of years, and he soon became the leader of the most important stand against the Catholic Church. I call Luther's actions a stand rather than a revolt because he did not willingly mean to disrespect the entire church or even start a new denomination of Christianity, he was only trying to bring truth to it. Luther published writings such as The Ninety-five Theses, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and A Treatise on Christian Liberty, all which produced outrage in the Church for the fact that it blatantly accused the clerics, and especially the pope, of many wrong doings in their practice.
Luther belonged to a church in Wittenburg, Germany and here he was a scholar as well as a priest. He, like many others, came to notice the corruption in the Church. The Church had come to own a great deal of land all over Europe, collect a very considerable sum in mandatory taxes from the middle-class, and they had become very rich and very powerful. This led to an even greater hunger and they started the practice of selling indulgences, which is paying to be forgiven of one's sins, and simony, which is paying to get into church office. These were just a few of the many un-Godly acts of the Catholic Church during the 1500's.
Luther felt that these injustuces should be brought to light and dealt with and then the Church should reform. With this idea he wrote The Ninety-five Theses, which were a series of wrongs committed by the church and the things they needed to do to change. This was originally supposed to be simply ideas put up for discussion among his peers in the Church, but very quickly this document spread like a wild fire and set the church a flame.
The Ninety-five Theses included the ideas that, "The pope cannot remit any guilt...The dying are freed by death from...
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