Best Answer
The Reformation was one of the most significant religious movements in the modern Christian Church. Also known as the Protestant Reformation, it is most highly associated with Martin Luther, who began the Reformation by publishing the Ninety-five Theses in 1517, which lead to a split between the Catholic Church and Luther in 1521 with the Edict of Worms. This Edict officially condemned Luther and was aimed at preventing people who were Catholics, which consisted of most of Europe, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire, from supporting or defending Luther’s ideas.
The most obvious impact of the Reformation was that it divided Christianity. Up until that time, Christianity was synonymous with Catholicism. Even though there was a divide between the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Church, they both still believed in the supremacy of the papacy, a faith tradition that continues until the modern day. Protestant religions abandoned the role of the pope in the church, which represented a major split, not just in practice or religious trappings, but in the fundamental religious ideas of the church.
The development of Protestantism had an impact that went well beyond the religious. The Church, particularly the papacy, played a significant political role in Western Europe during the time period leading up to the Reformation. Almost everyone was Catholic, which not only meant people following the Church’s leadership, but also a huge influx of money into the Church. The Pope was on the same level, or higher, as monarchs in Europe, in terms of wealth, influence, and reach. The rejection of the Church as a religious body, and the Pope in particular, had a huge impact on the Church’s political reach, and would become pivotal in disputes between monarchs and the Church, such as when Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce led him to break ties with the Roman Catholic Church and establish an entirely new, Protestant religion as the official religion for England.
