Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)

2017 / 2. szám - ARTICLES-STUDIEN - INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE SINCE THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION-INTERKULTURELLER DIALOG SEIT DER REFORMATION - Gosker, Margriet: Erős vár a mi Istenünk: 500 years of protestantism in the netherlands in ecumenical perspective

Erős vára mi Istenünk: 500 Years of Protestantism in the Netherlands in Ecumenical Perspective

Utrecht. He wrote a protest note: Contra Turrim Traiectensem. Money, intended for the poor, should not be used for the haughtiness of that monstrous tower. So he was strongly opposed to the collection of the money which was held in order to pay for its construction, and nobody should obey the bishop, when it came to such overly expensive buildings. But Geert Groote was no Luther. In order not to risk his church career, he never published the document. Only one manuscript was preserved, and it finally resurfaced after six centuries.41 All these forerunners paved the way to what became the Reformation in the end. But it was Luther, who hit the nerve. He went to the heart of the matter. The effect of his 95 theses was — so to say — more by luck than judgement. You might call it an accident, because of all the additional negative consequences, such as schisms, the hunting of heretics, the Inquisition, iconoclasms and pyres. But one thing is for certain the time was ripe for Church renewal. Somebody had to show up. Someone like Martin Luther, who had the faith, the personality, the intelligence, the energy, the character structure and the intransigence to say: Here I stand, I can do no other. Admittedly, he needed to be corrected by his friend and fellow reformer Philipp Melanchthon, who was much more subtle. But Luther was the man who hit a nerve. He said exactly what was needed to be said at the time. He was unsurpassed. He touched the core, and so he got a Reformation movement going, which changed Europe forever.

Luther excommunicated, but the Reformation goes on

Popes and emperors had to determine their position in front of the man from Wittenberg. In June 1520, Pope Leo X sent Luther a warning: Exsurge Domine. The bull’s name is derived from a Psalm text: “Arise, О Lord against the enemy.” It was clear who the enemy was. Luther now had to revoke his position. If not, things did not look good for him. But Luther did not think of it! He burned the papal bull on 12 December of that same year.42 On 3 January 1521, Luther was resolutely excommunicated by Pope Leo X. His excommunication was formally pronounced in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem. For political reasons, Emperor Maximilian had not taken action in the former years. His successor Emperor Charles V was crowned in October 1520. Three months after the papal excommunication, Luther was interrogated at the Imperial Diet in Worms by Emperor Charles V, who placed Luther under the Imperial Ban. From now on he was an outlaw. Anyone could kill him, unpunished. These were the rules in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Sometimes even this assumption emerged: if the Dutch pope Adrianus VI had not died so early after a short papacy (he became pope on 9 January 1522, and died on 14 September 1523), could he have prohibited the schism and could he have saved

41 Geert Groote's Treatise ‘Contra Turrim Traiectensem' was found back in 1967. http://www. dbnl.org/tekst/grot001 rrpo0l_01/grot001rrpo01_01_0002.php (3 Augustus 2017).

42 M. Raveling: Waarom de boeken van de paus en zijn volgelingen door doctor Martin Luther zijn verbrand (1520), in Selderhuis: Luther Verzameld, I, 452-463. Warum des Papstes und seiner Bücher von D. M. Luther verbrannt sind, 1520, WA 7,161 -182.

2017-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 21

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