Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther

He may share his name with the African-American leader of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s, but the "original" Martin Luther lived during the 16th century at the same time as Michelangelo.

Martin Luther

Luther changed the world in significant ways. After Martin Luther, the religious and political face of Germany, Europe, and the world would never be the same.

Martin Luther

Luther was born to Hans and Margerethe Luther on Noverber 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany. His family later moved to Mansfeld, where his father operated copper mines

Martin’s father

Martin’s mother

Martin Luther

Hans Luther was determined to see his eldest son become a lawyer. At the age of seventeen in 1501, he entered the University of Erfurt, receiving his Bachelor's degree after just one year in 1502, and his Master's in 1505.

Martin Luther

In accordance with his father's wishes, he enrolled in law school at the same university, but the course of his life changed, he said, during a thunderstorm in the summer of that year. A lightning bolt struck near him as he was returning to school. Terrified, he cried out, "Help! Saint Anna, I will become a monk!" He left law school, sold his books, and entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt.

Martin Luther

Luther dedicated himself to monastic life, devoting himself to fasts, long hours in prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession. Luther tried to please God through this dedication, but it only increased his awareness of his own sinfulness. His superior concluded that Luther needed more work to distract him from excessive introspection and ordered him to pursue an academic career. He began to lecture at universities.

Martin Luther

As he studied these portions of the Bible, he came to view the use of terms such as righteousness by the Roman Catholic Church in new ways. He became convinced that the church had lost sight of what he saw as several of the central truths of Christianity, the most important of which, for Luther, was the doctrine of justification — God's act of declaring a sinner righteous — by faith alone. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God's grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the messiah.

In 1516-17, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar and papal commissioner for indulgences was sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church to sell indulgences to raise money to rebuild St Peter's Basilica in Rome. In Roman Catholic theology, an "indulgence" is the remission of punishment because a sin already committed has been forgiven; the indulgence is granted by the church when the sinner confesses and receives absolution. When an indulgence is given, the church is extending merit to a sinner from its Treasure House of Merit, an accumulation of merits it has collected based on the good deeds of the saints. These merits could be bought and sold.

St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome

On October 31, 1517, Luther wrote to Albert, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, protesting the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," which came to be known known as The 95 Thesis. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practises, and the tone of the writing is accordingly "searching, rather than doctrinaire." Hillerbrand writes that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: "Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

Luther nailed a copy of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg that same day — church doors acting as the bulletin boards of his time — an event now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation and celebrated every October 31 as Reformation Day.

Cathedral Door, where the document was nailed….

Martin Luther

The 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be fanned by the printing press. Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe. Luther's writings circulated widely, reaching France, England, and Italy.

As a consequence, Luther was excommunicated.

Luther appeared, as ordered, before the Diet of Worms (Reichstag zu Worms). This was a general assembly (a diet) of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a town on the Rhine. It was conducted from January 28 to May 25, 1521, with Emperor Charles V presiding. Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, obtained an agreement that Luther would be promised safe passage to and from the meeting.

Luther before the “Diet of Worms.”

The apprehension of Luther was the last thing Frederick III, Elector of Saxony wanted, so he had him discreetly intercepted on his way home by masked horsemen and escorted to the security of the Wartburg Castle at Eisenach, where Luther grew a beard and lived incognito for nearly eleven months, pretending to be a knight called Junker Jörg .

During his stay at Wartburg — "my Patmos", as he called it — Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German .

A detail from the original title page…..Martin Luther’s bible in

1534

Katarina von Bora, Luther’s wife

On the evening of June 13, 1525, Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of a group of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, arranging for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels. "Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far other thoughts," he wrote to his friend Link, "the Lord has plunged me into marriage." Katharina was twenty-six years old, Luther forty-two.

A rare early printing of Luther's hymn, Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress is Our God).

Statue of Martin Luther outside the St. Mary's Church, Berlin.

House where Martin Luther passed away

Martin Luther died at age 62 in Eisleben, the place of his birth.

He was buried in the Castle Church in Wittenberg, beneath the pulpit.

He was buried in the Castle Church in Wittenberg, beneath the pulpit.

Luther's face and hands cast at his death