The Reformation , also known as the Protestant Reformation and the European Reformation , [ 1 ] was a major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and the authority of the Catholic Church.
Following the start of the Renaissance , the Reformation marked the beginning of Protestantism. It is considered one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe. Prior to Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers , there were earlier reform movements within Western Christianity. The Reformation, however, is usually considered to have started with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses , authored by Martin Luther in In May , at the Diet of Worms , Luther was condemned by the Holy Roman Empire , which officially banned citizens from defending or propagating Luther's ideas.
In general, the Reformers argued that salvation in Christianity was a completed status based on faith in Jesus alone and not a process that could involve good works , as in the Catholic view. Protestantism also introduced new ecclesiology. The spread of Gutenberg's printing press provided the means for the rapid dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The initial movement in Germany diversified, and nearby other reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin with different theologies arose.
The Counter-Reformation comprised the Catholic response to the Reformation, and largely affirmed Catholic positions that had been subject to critique by reformers. In the 16th-century context, the term mainly covers four major movements: Lutheranism , Calvinism , the Radical Reformation , and the Catholic Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
Since the late 20th century , historians often use the plural of the term to emphasize that the Reformation was not a uniform and coherent historical phenomenon but the result of parallel movements. Anglican theologian Alister McGrath explains the term "Reformation" as "an interpretative category—a way of mapping out a slice of history in which certain ideas, attitudes, and values were developed, explored, and applied". Historian John Bossy criticized the term Reformation [ 6 ] for "wrongly implying that bad religion was giving way to good," but also because it has "little application to actual social behaviour and little or no sensitivity to thought, feeling or culture.
