Reform and Reformation

46 eventsShow on the timeline

Movements to correct and renew the church: Cluny and the friars, Wycliffe and Hus, the Protestant and Catholic reformations, and later campaigns for change.

The call to return to the gospel is as old as the church. This thread follows it from the monastic reforms of the Middle Ages through the divisions of the sixteenth century, when reform could no longer be contained in one church, and on to the movements for social and institutional change in modern times.

The thread from start to finish

AD 789, firm date
Charlemagne’s Reform of Church and Learning
In the General Admonition of 789 Charlemagne orders the clergy of his kingdom to keep the canons, preach the faith, sing the Roman chant, open schools and copy books correctly. With Alcuin and other scholars he has the text of the Bible revised.
11 September AD 910, estimated date
The Founding of Cluny
Duke William of Aquitaine gives his estate at Cluny for a monastery under the Rule of Benedict and renounces every right over it, placing it under the apostles Peter and Paul and the protection of the pope.
1075 to 1077, firm date
The Investiture Controversy and Canossa
Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of Germany break over the appointment of bishops. Deposed and excommunicated in 1076, Henry comes as a barefoot penitent to the castle of Canossa in January 1077 and is absolved. The conflict goes on.
1098 to 1115, estimated date
The Cistercians and Bernard of Clairvaux
In 1098 monks from Molesme found a “New Monastery” at Cîteaux to keep the Rule of Benedict to the letter, in poverty and by their own labour. Bernard joins with some thirty companions and becomes abbot of Clairvaux, and daughter houses multiply.
about 1173, estimated date
Waldo and the Poor of Lyon
A rich citizen of Lyon gives away his wealth and begins to preach with his followers in voluntary poverty. The pope approves the poverty and restricts the preaching; when they preach on, they are condemned. The early accounts used here all come from critics of the movement.
about 1209, estimated date
Francis of Assisi and the Friars Minor
Francis of Assisi gives up his property to live by the Gospel in poverty, gathers brothers and wins the approval of Pope Innocent III. Clare founds a sister community, and in 1223 Honorius III confirms the Rule of the Friars Minor.
about 1382, estimated date
Wycliffe and the First English Bible
The teaching of the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe is condemned at London in 1382. A hostile chronicler says that he put the Gospel into English; the whole Bible is translated in those decades, and a constitution of 1409 forbids such versions without a bishop’s approval.
1384 to 1441, firm date
The Devotio Moderna and the Imitation of Christ
Geert Groote of Deventer gives up his benefices and preaches repentance. After his death in 1384 his followers form houses that live in common by copying books, and a monastery at Windesheim. In 1441 Thomas à Kempis, one of them, writes out the Imitation of Christ.
1414 to 1418, firm date
The Council of Constance and the Burning of Jan Hus
A general council ends the papal schism, declares that even a pope must obey it, and orders councils to meet at fixed intervals. It also tries the Czech preacher Jan Hus, who had come under the king’s safe-conduct, and hands him over to be burned on 6 July 1415.
1419 to 1436, firm date
The Hussites and the Compacts of Basel
After the burning of Jan Hus, Praguers and Taborites defend the lay chalice in arms. A crusade proclaimed by Martin V fails before Prague in 1420, the city states its demands in Four Articles, and in 1436 legates of the Council of Basel concede the chalice at Jihlava.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
1652, firm date
George Fox and the Quakers
In 1652 George Fox preaches across the north of England that Christ has come to teach his people himself, without priest, tithe or consecrated building. Margaret Fell’s house at Swarthmoor becomes the meeting place of the people their opponents call Quakers.
1652 to 1667, firm date
Nikon’s Reforms and the Old Believer Schism
Patriarch Nikon of Moscow brings Russian service books and rites into line with Greek usage. The archpriest Avvakum and others refuse the changes as a break with the faith of their fathers, a council of 1667 anathematises those who resist, and the Russian church divides.
1787 to 1816, estimated date
Richard Allen and the African Methodist Episcopal Church
Black Methodists pulled from their knees at prayer in St George’s Church, Philadelphia, walk out with Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. Allen opens Bethel church in 1794, and in 1816 Black congregations unite as the African Methodist Episcopal Church with Allen as bishop.
25 March 1807, firm date
Christians and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
After twenty years of campaigning by Quakers, Anglicans and a formerly enslaved writer, Parliament makes the British slave trade unlawful. Other Christians had defended the trade from the Bible, and a missionary society held slaves of its own.
14 July 1833, firm date
The Oxford Movement
John Keble’s sermon on national apostasy and the Tracts for the Times call the Church of England back to its claim to be a catholic church with bishops in succession from the apostles. After Tract 90 is censured, Newman becomes a Roman Catholic.
1910 to 1925, firm date
The Fundamentals and the Modernist Controversy
Twelve volumes called The Fundamentals are sent free to Protestant ministers from about 1910. In the 1920s a dispute between Fundamentalists and liberals over the Bible, miracles and modern knowledge divides American churches and reaches a courtroom at Dayton.
25 January 1944, firm date
The First Woman Is Ordained an Anglican Priest
In unoccupied China the Anglican bishop of Hong Kong ordains the deaconess Li Tim Oi a priest, so that her wartime congregation in Macau may have the sacraments. The Lambeth Conference of 1948 advises against such ordinations; that of 1978 accepts churches that ordain women.
16 April 1963, firm date
The Churches and the Civil Rights Movement
Jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for leading a march against segregation, the minister Martin Luther King Jr answers eight white clergymen who had called the protests untimely. His letter defends breaking unjust laws openly and reproaches the white churches.
24 August 1968, firm date
Medellín and Liberation Theology
In 1968 the Catholic bishops of Latin America apply the Second Vatican Council to a continent of mass poverty and speak of liberation. Gustavo Gutiérrez builds a theology on that word, and Rome answers with a warning in 1984 and a positive statement in 1986.
1982 to 1986, firm date
The Churches and Apartheid
Between 1982 and 1986 the Reformed world alliance calls the theological defence of apartheid a heresy, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church adopts the Belhar Confession, and the Kairos Document appears. The Dutch Reformed Church, which had sanctioned apartheid, later confesses it.
31 October 1999, firm date
Lutherans and Catholics Agree on Justification
At Augsburg the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church confirm a joint declaration: they share a consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification, and the condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to the teaching it sets out. Differences remain.
6 January 2002, firm date
The Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis
From January 2002, reports from Boston and then official inquiries in the United States, Ireland and Australia document the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and its concealment by church authorities. Popes change church law. Reports on other churches follow.
31 October 2016, firm date
Catholics and Lutherans Mark 500 Years of the Reformation Together
Pope Francis and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation open the five-hundredth anniversary year of the Reformation with a common prayer in Lund Cathedral, and sign a statement of thanks, repentance and commitment to common witness.