On this day 494 years ago Martin Luther pinned his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg. In order to raise funds to pay for the renovation of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, priests were selling indulgences, which supposedly resulted in the forgiveness of sins which would otherwise result in temporal punishment for the sinner in purgatory.
Luther’s document immediately achieved popularity as a result of widespread dissatisfaction with the perceived corruption and worldliness of the church authorities of the time, and within two months copies of the Theses in Latin had spread throughout Europe. The printing press had been invented by Gutenberg some 60 years earlier, and it was put to good use in spreading Luther’s controversy.
Luther’s aim in publishing the Theses was to halt the corrupt practice of indulgences, not to rebel against the church authorities. However, the extent of public feeling against the church and the unhelpful manner in which the church authorities reacted resulted in escalation of the issues, and the Edict of Worms in 1521 proclaimed Luther a heretic. In 1529 six princes issued a Letter of Protestation, and this led on to the Protestant Reformation.