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Woodcut of an indulgence-seller in a church from a 1521 pamphlet Johann Tetzel's coffer, now on display at St. Nicholaus church in Jüterbog, Germany. Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg and town preacher, [3] wrote the Ninety-five Theses against the contemporary practice of the church with respect to indulgences.
Indulgences grant a degree of expiation of the punishments of purgatory due to sin. However, the misuse of indulgences within the Church largely contributed to Martin Luther writing his Ninety-five Theses. The main usage of the indulgences by Tetzel was to help fund and build the new St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Luther's 95 Theses. The protests against Rome began in earnest in 1517 when Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, called for a reopening of the debate on the sale of indulgences. Luther's dissent marked a sudden outbreak of a new and irresistible force of discontent which had been pushed underground but not resolved.
In 1517, Martin Luther had nailed his 95 Theses against Indulgences on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, the opening act of the Reformation. In 1520 he burned the papal bull condemning him, and in 1534 the first Lutheran Bible was printed there. The Elector of Saxony was the most important patron of the Lutheran Reformation.
The Catholic Church had technically banned the practice of selling indulgences as long ago as 1567. As the Times points out, a monetary donation wouldn't go amiss toward earning an indulgence. It ...
One often cited example, and perhaps Luther's chief concern, was a condemnation of the selling of indulgences; another prominent point within the 95 theses is Luther's disagreement both with the way in which the higher clergy, especially the pope, used and abused power, and with the very idea of the pope.
The worldly excesses of the secular Renaissance church, epitomized by the era of Alexander VI (1492–1503), exploded in the Reformation under Pope Leo X (1513–1521), whose campaign to raise funds in the German states to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica by supporting sale of indulgences was a key impetus for Martin Luther's 95 Theses.
They advance Luther's positions against what he saw as abusive practices by preachers selling plenary indulgences, certificates believed to lessen punishment incurred for sin. Luther sent the Theses enclosed with a letter to Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg , on 31 October 1517, a date now considered to be the start of the Reformation and ...