The excommunication of the Augustinian Martin Luther by Leo X

A phrase was attributed to him - by some detractors - as soon as he ascended the papal throne: 'God gave us the papacy, let us enjoy it'.

Martin Luther was born on 10 November 1483 in Eisleben. In 1501 he began his studies in Erfurt in Thuringia where he passed his magisterial examination in 1505 and went on to study law.

Martin Luther was initially an Augustinian friar in Wittenberg before starting the Protestant Reformation.

On 3 January 1521, with the Bull decet romanum pontificem, Luther was declared a heretic and excommunicated.

He entered the Augustinian Order in 1505 and was a member of the observance congregation of Saxony. He belonged to the convent community first in Erfurt and then in Wittenberg. He held various government posts: vice-prior and regent of studies (1512-1515), then provincial vicar of Thuringia and Meissen (1515-1518). He was a renowned professor (doctor of theology) and accredited preacher; he dealt with the conflict between Observants and Conventuals that took him to Rome in 1511-1512.

Until 1521, he used to sign himself 'Martin Luther, Augustinian' and wore the habit until 1524, retaining much of his friar-like piety and style until his death.

Text taken from the website of the Northern Italy Religious Province of the Dehonians (Priests of the Sacred Heart).

The Reformation was an internal movement within the church in the 16th century, which aimed at the healing of certain theological disruptions (the trade in indulgences, the tendency towards secularisation, the excessive proliferation of hierarchies, incorrect liturgical drifts). A fracture in the church

continuity with the old church, understanding themselves as a 're-established' (reformed) expression of the church itself.

Protestantism is therefore not a 'protest' movement, the term 'Protestant' actually derives from a legal term: 'protest',

of the Old World into several religious congregations was not the intention, but became a de facto consequence since the conflict around Martin Luther's doctrine could not be resolved by consensus.

This soon followed other new movements in Europe, of which those in the Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva propagated most strongly. The new Christian communities and movements continued to refer to the idea of unity and

during the Diet of Speyer in 1529, was a kind of 'restrictive ordinance' in the sphere of opposition, to be referred to as 'pro-testarians' in the sense of 'bearing witness', and not rather to 'protest' in the sense of making a protest.

The most important ramifications of Protestantism today are represented by the two families, the Lutheran and the so-called Reformed - linking in this to the beginnings of the Reformation in Wittenberg and Zurich/Geneva.

Because of the importance of the distinction - mostly unknown - the full text was taken from the website of the Lutheran Church.

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