Martin Luther Nail Thesis to Church

The Protestant Reformation is traditionally dated to October 31, 1517, when the German monk and theologian Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, in the territory of Saxony. The church door served as a kind of public notice board, and Luther, a professor of theology, intended his theses as points for scholarly debate rather than an open break with Rome.

At the heart of Luther's complaints was the sale of indulgences, by which the Catholic Church offered remission of the temporal punishment for sin in exchange for payment. Luther was particularly outraged by the activities of the preacher Johann Tetzel, who marketed indulgences to fund the rebuilding of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Luther argued that salvation came through faith and divine grace, not through purchased pardons.

Aided by the recently developed printing press, the Ninety-Five Theses spread rapidly across the German lands and beyond, igniting a vast religious and political movement. Luther's defiance led to his excommunication and his condemnation at the Diet of Worms in 1521, but the Reformation he sparked permanently divided Western Christianity and reshaped European society.