What did Martin Luther accomplish in church history?

Answer 1

Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door of the church in 1595 naming many charges against the Catholic church. One example of the wrongs practiced in that day was the marketing of 'Indulgences' or permission to sin for profit. This thesis was the catylist for a church split. At the time the Catholic church had a monopoly over the entire continent of Europe. The Catholic church had brought order and education to Europe which began to reform and pull them out of the Dark Ages. So Luther suffered many long days and nights of indecision before choosing to oppose their power. First reason being, he knew they would use their power to discredit him, even judge and execute him. More importantly, he considered the consequences of the church collapsing and sending Europe back into another Dark Age. Fortunately, that didn't happen, but splitting the church forced the Catholic church to compete and therefor reform and correct many of those bad practices. He also translated The Bible from Latin into language of the common man so they could read it for themselves whereas before, only the educated via the church or the very rich could read it. This too, forced the Catholic church to accountability because their parishioners could now see for themselves how far the church had strayed from the direction of their source material. Not only were new denominations born of Luther's actions, but the original was pulled back under the authority of the scriptures.