Luther Excommunicated: The Great Church Schism Deepens
Luther's 95 Theses had been posted for three years. Leo X tried everything else first. Debates. Negotiations. Threats. Nothing worked. The German monk kept writing. Kept preaching. Kept saying the Pope couldn't sell salvation. The bull's Latin title meant 'It befits the Roman Pontiff.' Formal language for a declaration of war. Luther burned his copy in public. Students cheered. Half of Germany followed him out of the Catholic Church. The split cost Rome millions in revenue from indulgences. It triggered 130 years of religious wars. Leo X died the same year, probably unaware he'd just created Protestantism. The Church would never recover its monopoly on European Christianity.
January 3, 1521
505 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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