The rise of Protestantism started in the 16th century due to recognition of the Catholic Church abuses. Martin Luther, a protestant reformer, spoke out against the church by hanging up the 95 theses that focused on the concept of reading the bible alone and faith alone. As the rise of awareness of these abuses increased, more reformers broke away from the church, and Europe was divided by religion. John Calvin was also a reformer that started the popular religion of predestination:Calvinism. The dramatic change was evident because pre 15th century, it was a Catholic country and the religion ruled the land. The unity of Western Christianity was broken and majority of Northern Europe adopted Protestantism. The Princes in Germany wanted to …show more content…
Along with the religious reformers, Henry VIII played an important role in the rise of Protestants due to the unwanted marriage with his wife, Catherine of Aragon that created a new religion. During the 16th century, the Pope would not grant the king a divorce to his wife that couldn’t produce more generations of royalty, so the Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church to have a new religion called Anglican. In 1534, the Act of Supremacy was granted to the king and it gave the supreme head title to King Henry VIII, it gave him authority and profits that he wouldn 't have been granted if the Protestant Reformation would not have sparked breaking away from the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Catholic Church slowly started to lose their authority of the Europe population because of the increase of Protestants and wanting freedom from the controlling church. Due to the division of the Catholic Church, religious wars were happening in Europe causing tension between Catholics and Protestants. The French Wars were between Huguenots and ultra Catholics that resulted in the Edict of Nantes, which gave Huguenots the right to their Calvinism. With minor battles including countries within Europe and Spain, finally led to the Thirty Years’ war, which involved the great powers of the Protestant Union and Catholic