Reformation Turning Point

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The Reformation of the Catholic Church was a major turning point in the history of the Catholic Church.The Reformation means “to change”. In the 16th Century the Catholic Church was the dominating religion in the world. The Reformation was the changing or alteration of specific practices of the Catholic Church. It was also called the Protestant Reformation because of how the Protestant Churches emerged as a result of the Reformation.

The Reformation took place during the 16th century in Germany, Western Europe. It began in Germany and later spread to the whole of Europe. Germany was considered to be a Catholic country. The Reformation began when a monk by the name of Martin Luther decided to write up the 95 Theses and nailed it to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. This was an extremely major event in the Reformation.

The selling of indulgences helped spark the Reformation because of how they were essentially selling forgiveness. This was brought up by Pope Leo X, the pope of that time. He brought this up because of how he wanted to renovate St Peter’s Basilica. Because of this, he required money, therefore he decided to sell little tickets called indulgences, which suggested …show more content…

Alongside the Black Death, which killed off many people, this meant that the number of people who actually did understand what the priest was saying during the mass were drastically reduced. During this time period, priests also were killed off, this meant that there was a lack of people to lead the sermons. This effectively led to the Church taking random people off the street and ordained as priests. This led to the people believing every word that the “priest” is saying and doing as they command because they themselves did not know how to read. Because of this, the ordinary people did not know much about