The Reformation

1500–165042 eventsShow on the timeline

Western Christianity divides. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the Anabaptists and the English church break with Rome; Trent renews Catholicism; missions reach Asia and the Americas.

What began as a dispute over indulgences became a lasting division into Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Anabaptist traditions, each with its own confessions. The Bible was translated into the languages of Europe. The era ends with the wars of religion and the settlements that followed them.

Events of this era

1516, firm date
Erasmus Publishes the Greek New Testament
In 1516 the Basel printer Johann Froben issues Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum, the New Testament in Greek with a revised Latin version and notes, dedicated to Pope Leo X. Its preface wishes Scripture translated into every language.
31 October 1517, firm date
Luther’s Ninety-five Theses
On 31 October 1517 Martin Luther sends the archbishop of Mainz ninety-five theses questioning what indulgences can do. Whether he also posted them on the Castle Church at Wittenberg that day is disputed. The controversy that follows becomes the Reformation.
1520 to 1521, firm date
Luther Is Excommunicated and Outlawed at Worms
Leo X condemns forty-one of Luther’s propositions in 1520 and excommunicates him in January 1521. Before Charles V at Worms that April, Luther refuses to retract unless convinced by Scripture or evident reason. An imperial edict outlaws him, and he is hidden in a Saxon castle.
1522 to 1534, firm date
Luther Translates the Bible into German
In hiding over the winter of 1521–22, Luther translates the New Testament into German; it is printed at Wittenberg in September 1522. The Old Testament follows in parts, and the complete Bible appears in 1534.
29 January 1523, firm date
Zwingli and the Reformation in Zurich
Zwingli, preacher at Zurich’s Great Minster, defends his teaching in sixty-seven articles before the city council on 29 January 1523. The council rules that he is to go on preaching, and by Easter 1525 it has abolished the mass in the city.
1524 to 1525, firm date
The German Peasants’ War
In 1525 peasants in Swabia, Franconia and Thuringia rise, arguing their demands from the gospel in twelve printed articles. Luther first blames lords and peasants alike, then urges the rulers to strike the rebels down. Thomas Müntzer is taken at Frankenhausen in May.
21 January 1525, firm date
The First Anabaptists
In January 1525 former followers of Zwingli at Zurich begin to baptise adults on confession of faith. The council answers with banishment and, from 1526, with death by drowning; Felix Manz is drowned in 1527. The Schleitheim articles of that year state what they believed.
1526, firm date
Tyndale’s English New Testament
William Tyndale, unable to work in England, has his English New Testament printed at Worms in 1526. The bishop of London bans it and Thomas More writes against it. Tyndale is strangled and burned at Vilvoorde in 1536.
19 April 1529, firm date
The Protestation at Speyer
At the diet of Speyer in April 1529 the majority revokes the latitude that the diet of 1526 had left to each ruler in religion. A group of princes and fourteen cities enter a formal protest, holding that in matters of salvation each must answer to God for himself.
1 October 1529, firm date
Luther and Zwingli Meet at Marburg
In October 1529 Philip of Hesse brings Luther and Zwingli together at Marburg. They sign fourteen articles of agreement and a fifteenth recording that they could not agree whether Christ’s body and blood are bodily present in the bread and wine.
25 June 1530, firm date
The Augsburg Confession
At the Diet of Augsburg seven princes and two cities present the emperor Charles V with a statement of their faith in twenty-eight articles, drawn up by Philip Melanchthon. Lutheran princes and cities bind themselves to it again in the Book of Concord of 1580.
1531, traditional date
Our Lady of Guadalupe
A Nahuatl account printed in 1649 tells how the Virgin Mary appeared in December 1531 to Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac and left her image on his cloak. The Catholic Church has approved the devotion and in 2002 declared Juan Diego a saint.
1534, firm date
England Breaks with Rome
Parliament forbids appeals to Rome and in 1534 declares Henry VIII the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. John Fisher and Thomas More, who deny the title, are beheaded in 1535.
1536 to 1541, firm date
Calvin’s Institutes and the Reform of Geneva
John Calvin, a French exile, publishes the Institutes of the Christian Religion at Basel in 1536 and is kept in Geneva by Guillaume Farel. Banished in 1538, he returns in 1541, and the city adopts the church ordinances he asked for.
2 June 1537, firm date
Rome Declares the Peoples of the Americas Free
In the bull Sublimis Deus Pope Paul III declares that the peoples of the Americas are truly human, capable of the Christian faith, and not to be enslaved or deprived of their property. Las Casas and the Crown’s own laws show that enslavement went on.
27 September 1540, firm date
The Society of Jesus Is Founded
Pope Paul III approves the Society of Jesus, a company of ten priests, masters of the University of Paris, led by Ignatius of Loyola. Its members vow poverty, chastity and obedience, with a special vow to go wherever the pope sends them.
1542 to 1552, firm date
Francis Xavier in India and Japan
The Jesuit Francis Xavier lands at Goa in 1542, teaches and baptizes among the Christians of Cape Comorin, and in 1549 carries the Christian message to Japan with the Japanese convert Anjiro. He dies in 1552 on an island off China.
1545 to 1563, firm date
The Council of Trent
In twenty-five sessions spread over eighteen years, the Catholic bishops assembled at Trent define their church’s teaching on Scripture and tradition, justification and the sacraments, and decree a reform of the clergy.
1549 to 1552, firm date
The Book of Common Prayer
Parliament orders one English service book, drawn up under the archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in every church in England from Pentecost 1549. A revised book, which no longer calls the communion the Mass, follows in 1552.
25 September 1555, firm date
The Peace of Augsburg
The imperial diet at Augsburg makes a lasting peace between the estates of the old religion and those of the Augsburg Confession. Each estate keeps its religion in its own lands; subjects who dissent may emigrate; all other confessions are excluded.
1555 to 1558, firm date
The Burning of Protestants under Mary I
Under Mary I, Parliament returns England to obedience to Rome and revives the medieval heresy laws. From 1555 to 1558 Protestants who will not recant are burned, among them the bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer. John Foxe’s book records them as martyrs.
1559, firm date
The Elizabethan Settlement
Elizabeth I’s first Parliament ends the pope’s jurisdiction in England, makes the queen supreme governor of the church and restores the Prayer Book. In 1570 the pope excommunicates her, and new laws make Catholic priests and those reconciled to Rome traitors.
August 1560, firm date
The Scottish Reformation
In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament, meeting while its Catholic queen is in France, ratifies a Protestant confession of faith written by John Knox and his colleagues, ends the pope’s jurisdiction and forbids the mass.
24 August 1562, firm date
Teresa of Ávila Reforms Carmel
In 1562 the Carmelite nun Teresa founds the small, enclosed and unendowed convent of St Joseph at Ávila to keep her order’s rule in its early strictness. More houses follow, friars join the reform, among them John of the Cross, and both leave writings on prayer.
19 January 1563, firm date
The Heidelberg Catechism
In January 1563 the elector Frederick III issues a catechism for the churches and schools of the Palatinate. Its 129 questions, beginning with the believer’s ‘only comfort in life and in death’, become a confession of Reformed churches.
25 February 1570, firm date
Regnans in Excelsis and the Execution of Catholic Priests under Elizabeth I
In 1570 Pope Pius V declares Elizabeth I deposed. Parliament makes reconciliation with Rome treason, and priests such as the Jesuit Edmund Campion are executed: as traitors, says the government; for their religion, say Catholic writers.
24 August 1572, firm date
The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
After the king’s Catholic sister marries the Protestant Henry of Navarre, the Huguenot leader Coligny is shot in Paris. From 24 August 1572 he and thousands of French Protestants are killed there and in other towns. Accounts of who decided it differed from the first.
25 June 1580, firm date
The Book of Concord
After years of disputes among Lutherans following Luther’s death, six theologians sign the Formula of Concord in 1577. In 1580 Lutheran electors, princes and cities publish it with the Augsburg Confession, Luther’s catechisms and the ancient creeds as one Book of Concord.
26 January 1589, firm date
Moscow Becomes a Patriarchate
In January 1589 Jeremias II of Constantinople, visiting Russia, installs Metropolitan Job as the first patriarch of Moscow. A council at Constantinople confirms it in 1590 and ranks Moscow fifth. The tsar’s charter calls the Russian realm the Third Rome.
October 1596, firm date
The Union of Brest
In 1595 the metropolitan of Kiev and most of his bishops, Orthodox subjects of the Polish king, offer union with Rome on thirty-three conditions. Clement VIII receives them, and the union is proclaimed at Brest in 1596. Other bishops and Prince Ostrogski stay outside it.
1597 to 1614, firm date
The Martyrs of Nagasaki and the Ban on Christianity in Japan
In 1597 the Japanese ruler Hideyoshi has twenty-six Christians, foreign friars and Japanese converts, crucified at Nagasaki. In 1614 the Tokugawa government orders Christianity suppressed throughout Japan as a threat to the country of the gods and of Buddha.
April 1598, firm date
The Edict of Nantes
Henry IV of France issues an edict to settle the civil wars over religion. It restores Catholic worship throughout the kingdom and gives the Reformed freedom of conscience, worship in named places, access to offices and courts in which they are represented.
1599 to 1653, firm date
The Synod of Diamper and the Coonan Cross Oath
In June 1599 the archbishop of Goa holds a synod at Diamper that binds the Thomas Christians of Malabar to Rome and cuts their tie to the patriarch of Babylon. In 1653 many of them swear to obey their Jesuit archbishop no longer, and the community divides.
24 January 1601, firm date
Matteo Ricci at the Court of Beijing
The Jesuit Matteo Ricci reaches Beijing in January 1601 with gifts for the Wanli emperor and is allowed to stay. He writes a catechism that argues from reason and the Chinese classics, and scholars such as Xu Guangqi are baptized and work with him.
1609, estimated date
The First Baptist Congregations
English Separatists in Amsterdam, led by John Smyth, reject infant baptism and found their church anew by baptizing believers on confession of faith. Thomas Helwys leads part of the group back to London and argues that no king has power over conscience.
1611, firm date
The King James Bible
A new English translation of the Bible, asked for at the Hampton Court conference of 1604 and made by companies of scholars at Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge, is published in London in 1611 by command of James I and appointed to be read in churches.
1618 to 1648, firm date
The Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia
A revolt of Bohemian Protestants in 1618 grows into a war that draws in all Germany and its neighbours. The treaties of Osnabrück and Münster in 1648 fix the rights of Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed in the Empire by the year 1624; the pope declares those articles void.
1618 to 1619, firm date
The Synod of Dort
A national synod of the Dutch Reformed churches, with delegates from Britain, Germany and Switzerland, judges the five articles of the Remonstrants, the followers of Arminius. Its Canons set out the Reformed teaching on predestination and grace in five heads.
1620, firm date
The Pilgrims Land at Plymouth
Part of an English Separatist congregation that had lived in exile at Leiden sails to New England in 1620, forms itself into a civil body by a written covenant, and founds Plymouth. Half die in the first winter; a peace is made with the sachem Massasoit.
1622 to 1632, firm date
Susenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church
Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia professes the Roman faith under Jesuit guidance and in 1626 swears obedience to the pope. After years of revolt he restores the faith of Alexandria in 1632, and under his son Fasilides the Jesuits are sent out of the country.
22 June 1633, firm date
The Trial of Galileo
The Roman Inquisition judges Galileo vehemently suspected of heresy for holding that the earth moves round the sun, bans his Dialogue and makes him abjure. He is confined to his house near Florence, where he dies in 1642.
1643 to 1649, firm date
The Westminster Confession
An assembly of divines called by the English Parliament in 1643, joined by commissioners from Scotland, draws up a confession of faith and catechisms. The Church of Scotland approves the Confession in 1647, and the Scottish Parliament ratifies it in 1690.