The Protestant Reformation Term Analysis

Also known simply as the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation is the roughly 130-year time period during which several new branches of Christianity separated from the Catholic Church. The Reformation began in 1517 when Martin Luther, a monk, scholar, and the founder of Lutheranism, published the 95 Theses, calling out hypocrisy in the Church. Following Luther’s attacks on the Church, many others expressed their own dissatisfaction and created their own Christian movements. Although the Church of England was primarily founded to give Henry VIII the ability to grant his own request for a divorce, its creation was made possible by the previous decades of religious unrest, which had weakened the control of the Catholic Church.