Martin Luther

The Earlier Years Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, south-east Germany. His parents were from a family of peasants, but his father was a successful miner and ore smelter. In 1484, the family moved to Mansfeld. Luther’s father wanted him to become a lawyer. When he was seven, Martin Luther started school in Mansfeld. When he turned14, he went to north to Magdeburg and continued to study law. In 1498, he returned to Eisleben and studied grammar, rhetoric and logic. He said this experience was like purgatory and hell. In 1501, Martin Luther went to the University of Erfurt, where he got a Master of Arts degree in grammar, logic, rhetoric and metaphysics. In July 1505, Luther had a life-changing experience that set him on a new course. He was caught in a really bad thunderstorm where he feared for his life, Luther cried out to St. Anne, the patron saint of miners, “Save me, St. Anne, and I’ll become a monk!” The storm faded and Luther was saved. The decision to become a monk disappointed his father, but he Luther had made a promise and felt he had to keep it. Luther was also driven by fears of hell and God’s wrath, and felt that life in a monastery would help him find salvation.

A Change In His Life At age 27, Martin Luther attended a church conference in Rome. He came away discouraged by the immortality and corruption he witnessed there among the Catholic priests. Upon his return to Germany, he enrolled in the University of Wittenberg later becoming a professor of theology at the university. He realized the key to spiritual salvation was not to fear God but to believe that faith alone would bring salvation. This period marked a major change in his life and so the Reformation began.

The Reformation In 1517, Pope Leo X announced that there would be more indulgences introduced to help build St. Peter’s Basilica. Martin Luther was not impressed and put a list with 95 theses on the university’s church doors saying that the indulgences corrupted people’s faith. Throughout 1519, Martin Luther continued to lecture and write in Wittenberg. He declared that the Bible did not give the pope the exclusive right to interpret scripture, which was a direct attack on the authority of the papacy. In 1520, the pope had had enough and sent Luther an ultimatum called the Papal Bull threatening him with excommunication. On December 10, 1520, Luther publicly burned the letter and Luther was excommunicated and was considered an outlaw after the Edict of Worms was released in Friends helped him hide at the Wartburg Castle.

Achievements Martin Luther is one of the most influential and controversial figures in the Reformation movement. We owe Luther a great deal as he managed to break the power of the Catholic Church and set a path with other reformers of that day to our modern society. His desire for people to feel closer to God led him to translate the new and old testaments into German so that other people would have the opportunity to read God’s word, radically changing the relationship between church leaders and their followers.

Why I Chose Martin Luther I chose to do my project on Martin Luther as he was a brave and truly inspiring man. He was able to speak his opinion even if it meant receiving threats from the Pope. He stuck with what he believed in and in the end got what he wanted, for the church begin to reform and organised a new church. It just goes to show that if you want something to be done about a problem or are unhappy about the way things are, nothing can be done unless you speak up about it.