MARTIN LUTHER

Martin Luther, born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony, and died on February 18, 1546, in the same city, was a German Augustinian friar, theologian, and university professor. As the initiator of Protestantism and a reformer of the Church, his ideas had a significant influence on the Protestant Reformation, which altered the course of Western civilization.

Concerned with the questions of death and salvation that characterize Christianity in the late Middle Ages, he sought answers in the Bible, particularly in Paul's epistle to the Romans.

According to Luther, the salvation of the soul is a free gift from God, received through sincere repentance and genuine faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, without any possible intercession from the Church. He challenged papal authority by holding the Bible as the only legitimate source of Christian authority.

Shocked by the indulgence trade established by Popes Julius II and Leo X to finance the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, he published the 95 Theses on October 31, 1517.

Summoned on June 15, 1520, by Pope Leo X to retract his statements, he was excommunicated on January 3, 1521, by the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem. The Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V, summoned Martin Luther in 1521 to the Diet of Worms. A safe conduct was granted to him to attend without risk.

Before the Diet of Worms, he refused to retract, declaring himself convinced by the testimony of Scripture and feeling bound by the authority of the Bible and his conscience rather than that of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Diet of Worms, under pressure from Charles V, then decided to put Martin Luther and his followers under the ban of the Empire.

He was welcomed by his friend, the Elector of Saxony Frederick III the Wise, at the Wartburg Castle, where he composed his most well-known and widely distributed texts. It was there that he embarked on a translation of the Bible into German from the original texts, a translation whose cultural influence would be paramount, both for the establishment of the German language and for the establishment of the principles of the art of translation.