Introduction During the first half of the XVI century, Europe provided a suggestive landscape where the first reactions against the established order started to arise. Erasmus was the forerunner who set the underpinnings of the reform, Luther initiated the discussion and lit the fuse and Calvin put it into practice in Geneva, while at the same time several authors risked their lives and honor to defend the new and free propositions and advocate in favor of a full, truthful and individual religious life. The theological debate transcended the framework of the medieval heresies and turned into specific material and spiritual proposals that were perceived as feasible projects. This state of affairs produced the first moral and political rupture of Western Christendom since the time of Constantine.

Since the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, two parallel powers coexisted in the Western medieval lands, the Papacy and the Empire, one basically spiritual and the other temporal, which somehow provided legitimacy to each other under a myriad of small feudal and self-sufficient states.

On these grounds, in IX and the X centuries a type of social and economic organization (feudalism) flourished, and thereafter, expanded throughout the Western Christendom during the XI and the XIII centuries. During this period, the Church held an economic and social power, as well as religious, powerful enough to assert itself in front of the Western monarchies and enjoyed an uncontested monopoly for the ideological control of society. This power allowed the Church to participate actively in earthly matters and to become an effective counter power to most of the existing feudal states. However, the Church hierarchy was the victim of the same vices as those affecting the civil authorities, and exercised the same abuses as the civil authorities on peasants and citizens. In fact, quite often the high and medium Church hierarchy was composed of individuals belonging to the local aristocracy, since the approval from the Papacy was limited to the highest-ranking posts. The system, therefore, had two faces but both shared a common interest to control and exploit the producing classes.

In the religious arena, destabilizing phenomena, as deep as in the earthly order, were also taking place. The regrettable spectacle of a disunited Church, whose two factions excommunicated each other during the Western schism, and which shamefully ignored the help requests from Constantinople, weakened the moral authority of Rome. In addition, some of the medieval heresies have had a social and theological impact in the religious and political structures, such as that of the Cathars (albigensis) or the husites.

A more worrying tendency which also threatened the doctrinal position of Rome, but which was not identified until the Reformation, was the progressive falling apart between the masses of believers and the religious establishment, whose pedagogical and doctrinal task did not meet the expectations of the common Christian. The corruption amongst the clergy, the absolutism and the disinterested preaching produced the double and contradictory effect of making necessary the reformation of the Church while at the same time the Church was entrenching itself in the old doctrines.

Background and development of the reformation movement

Although the foregoing causes could be considered general and cumulative, the circumstances that provoke Luther’s reaction are more immediate and specific. From 1507 onwards, Pope Julius II authorized the promulgation of indulgences in order to finance the construction of the new Saint Peter basilica. The right to manage the distribution of indulgences was granted to the ruling nobles who agree to pay large sums to acquire such license to sell forgiveness. In 1517, the main agent of the Archbishop Albrecht of Magdeburg, a Dominican friar named Tetzel came close to the frontiers of Wittemberg, where the Agustin friar Luther inhabited, to sell and dispense indulgences. Luther realized the evident corruption embedded in the dispensation of indulgences and the mercenary character of the Church hierarchy that promoted its dissemination. Luther quickly composed in Latin ninety-five theses that he entitled Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum (Disputation for Clarification of the Power of Indulgences).

Karlstadt setting the example for all the Empire, carried out the practical application of the Reformation in the cult from 1522 onwards in Wittemberg. The Northern territories of Saxony, Hesse and Brandenburg were the first to adopt the new religion and their princes quickly seized the Church property as part of the strategy to reach a national church (merger between the church and the state). This initial success may be explained due to the corruption of the Roman clergy, but also because the German electors (i.e. those rulers being entitled to vote in the German Diet to elect the Emperor) saw this occasion as their chance to get rid of, or at least to weaken, the power of Charles V. The Emperor was a strong ally of the Roman Church since its coronation in 1530 and wanted to establish a universal empire to the detriment of the feudal autonomy enjoyed by the German nobility. The Reformation also drew the attention of a significant number of thinkers (Melanchton, Zwinglio, Bucer, Ecolampadus and Servetus) and artists (Cranach, Holbein, Durero).

Luther soon broke with the conciliation spirit of Erasmus and with the radical Anabaptism of Thomas Munzer (peasants’ revolts in 1524) and of David Joris and John Leyden (theocratic republic of Munster). The spread of Protestantism, either in its Lutheran formulation or other parallel formulations, expanded steadily throughout Europe thanks to the press and the network of Erasmian thinkers. Civil authorities endorsed the Reformation immediately, such as in the Northern of Germany (Lutherans), in Switzerland (Zwinglians and after Calvinists), Flanders (Lutherans at the beginning and Calvinists at the end of the XVI century), Sweden (officially from the Vasteras Diet in 1527), Denmark (first Lutheran church in 1537) and England. In this latter country, the sudden decision of Henry VIII to break with Rome and refund the local Church into the Anglican Church, with the monarch as its head, constituted the most perfect example of the application of the Reformation ideal to the establishment of a national church, as well as the manifestation of the impotency and the discredit of the Roman Church.

Finally, the arm conflict broke out between Protestants and Catholics, the first chapter of the religious wars in Europe. The Protestants were defeated in Mühlberg in 1547, although the Emperor showed his mercy with the defeated, summoning a Diet in Augsburg in 1548 in which, with a wide consensus, the “interim” was drafted, granting Protestants two rights: communion under both species and the authorization of marriage for priests. In any case, recourse to force was necessary to impose the “interim” in the lands of the Empire. In 1552, Maurice of Saxony, with the support of other princes and France, revolted against Charles V and defeated his troops in Innsbruck. Finally, three years after the truce signed in Passau, in the Diet of Augsburg the legal principle "cuius regio, eius religio" (each kingdom, its religion) was established, thereby leaving at the discretion of each ruler to determine the religion to be adopted in its domains. The peace treaty signed at Augsburg terminated the German civil war, but it bore the seeds of a century of religious wars in Europe.

The Council of Trent or the Church response

Prior to Luther reform, thousands of voices had called for a reform within the Church. The last attempt in this regard took place in the Letran Council in 1516, but without any success. The Church underestimated the potential impact of the “protest” of Luther as stated in his 95 thesis and it basically attempted to counter act his movement by asking him to abjure his errors, but not by refuting its doctrines. The lack of tact on the part of the Roman Church along with Luther’s obstination had the effect of increasing Luther’s prestige and approaching his doctrines to the laic powers interested in its revolutionary approach that had some reminiscences of the medieval heresies. As the Roman hierarchy realized the intrinsic danger that Luther represented, some sectors of the Church (the Carmelits, the Capucins, the Order of Saint John and the Jesuits) expressed the need to introduce reforms.

A compromise was reached concurrent commissions would prepared resolutions on dogmas and reform. and this would be presented to the Council alternative. The Council was suspended in 1547 and resumed its works in 1551.Protestants showed up and discussion on dogmas was held. The Council reaffirmed the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation: the priest, in consecrating the bread and wine of the Eucharist, actually changes each of them into the body and blood of Christ. The Council was again suspended as military developments supervened upon theology (defeat of Charles V in Innsbruck).

The Counter Reform spirit as expressed in the Council of Trent, despite failing in approaching the Catholic position to that of the different Protestant movements, entailed the deepest transformation of the Church since the Council of Nicea (325), and was not overcome until the Vatican II Council (1962-1965).

Written by Andrés Galindo Blecua. Translated by Sergio Baches Opi

	Some of his biographers have defined him as a man of order and peace who was born into a world of conflict. We do not want to make any negative judgment on this appreciation. It would simply be unfair to judge to the great reformer in the light of the episode that led to the death of Michael Servetus. Accusing Calvin of the death of Servetus is pointless at this time. Calvin was an exceptional writer and theologian, affected as many others, by the passions of his time, but nobody can deny that he was a man of faith who exerted his ministry sincerely and with intellectual rigor. John Calvin was born in Noyon (France) in 1509, within a very religious family. Unlike Luther and other reformists, Calvin enjoyed the advantages of having a twofold education: theology and law. This allowed him to endow his system of thought with a logical and rational element, as well as with a sense of statehood that other reformers lacked and which Calvin put into practice in the city-state of Geneva.
In 1536 he published in Latin “The Institutes of the Christian Religion” ("Christianae Religionis Institutio"), and in 1541 he published the second, enlarged and corrected, edition in French. The Institutes constitute the spinal cord of his theological and political theory. For Calvin, man is incapable, because of his impious, depraved and corrupted nature, to understand the immensity of God. Therefore, human beings cannot produce anything inherently good, because the mind always remains involved in hypocrisy, perversity and deceit. This approach of Calvin differs from the deep humanism embbeded in Servetus’ theological system of thought, wich asserts the ability of men to partake in divinity with God through their faith in Christ. The predestination doctrine developed by the Calvinist theology was derived from this pessimistic conception of the human being. For Calvin, no man can ever earn his salvation by any amount of good words. The Lord, before the foundation of the world, chose some men for salvation and some others for damnation without regard to their merits. Calvin admitted that the doctrine of the predestination is repulsive to reason, but he replies that it is unreasonable that man could scrutinize those things which the Lord has hidden for himself. Do the contrary, Servetus defended the free choice of human beings and openly criticized the doctrine of the predestination. Calvin arrived at Geneva in 1536, two months after the city proclaimed its adhesion to the Reformation, after overthrowing the Duke de Savoy from power. The leader of the Reform, Farel, chose the young Calvin to consolidate the advance of the Reform in Geneva. It is then in Geneva where Calvin put into practice his religious dictatorship. Calvin argued that the social and political organization must be subordinated to reason, although this did not mean that the civil power must be independent from the spiritual power. There is a continuum between the spiritual and the civil authority. The authority of the magistrates deserves respect by itself, because it is founded by God. Christian freedom consists of governing men according to the holy word of the Gospel. For that reason, the political authority has been established to accomplish a mission: to rule society in accordance with the law of God. Citizens are not entitled to revolt against the magistrates, when those in powers become tyrants. Only Providence, can intervene against a government by sending a Prophet.   The Calvinist conception of authority also differs from that of Servetus, since for Servetus Church and State must be separated. In addition, Calvin's conception of authority is also opposed to the liberal thought that will spring, inter alia, in the United States of America, whose Declaration of Independence (1776) proclaims the right of people to alter or abolish tyrannical governments without any kind of providential limitations. In honor of the truth, and pursuant to Touchard, it must be pointed out that Calvinism evolved towards a more liberal position. It must not be overlooked that Calvin defended a rational interpretation of the Gospels. When this rational element is freed from its initial dogmatism, a liberal trend will arise within Calvinism and will affirm without limitations the freedom of conscience. This explains why the Calvinists erected an expiatory monument in the Champel hill (Geneva) in 1903 in honor of Servetus, in which they condem the error of Calvin and endorse the right to freedom of conscience. Written and translated by Sergio Baches Opi To learn more about John Calvin see: T.H.L. Parker, “John Calvin”, Lion, United Kingdom, 1988; Will Durant, “The Reformation, The Story of Civilization”, MJF Books, New York, 1985; Jean Touchard “Historia de las ideas políticas”, Ed. Tecnos, 1988; “Ioannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia”, Ediderunt G. Baum, E. Cunitz, E. Reuss, Brunskick and Berlín 1863-1900, 59 volumes [Corpus Reformatorum edition].