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Protestants are opposed to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy. Protestant Christians argue that the tradition of the See of Rome's primacy in the early Church was not equivalent to the current doctrine of supremacy. [1] [2]
Luther used to be a devout Roman Catholic who highly esteemed the Pope. Luther first believed that the problems with the church lay with the curia around the Pope but not the Pope himself. Even after nailing the 95 theses he still had hope that the Pope would accept his theses. However later Luther developed his critical approach against the papacy, especially after his excommunication in 1521. [3]
In England as Henry VIII wanted annul his marriage, but the Pope would not grant it, thus King Henry rejected the Pope's authority and started the Church of England. [4]
In 1537 Philip Melanchton made a book against papal primacy named "Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope", Melanchton argued that the papacy had no basis on either history or scripture. [5]
Matthew 16:18 has caused much controversy, the Catholic church sees this as the basis for the papacy. A common Protestant interpretation is that the Rock is Peter's confession or Peter's confession about Jesus' identity. [6]
Martin Luther claimed that the papacy is the Antichrist, which was influenced by the events of his life, but also by Lorenzo Valla. [7] The view that the papacy was the Antichrist was held by radical followers of Jan Hus and by most Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. [8] However this view has changed in the modern day among many Protestants. [9]
The belief that the Papacy is the Antichrist is still held by Seventh Day Adventists. [10]
The Pope, also known as supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome, head of the worldwide Catholic Church, and has also served as the head of state or sovereign of the Papal States and later the Vatican City State since the eighth century. From a Catholic viewpoint, the primacy of the bishop of Rome is largely derived from his role as the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, to whom primacy was conferred by Jesus, who gave Peter the Keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing", naming him as the "rock" upon which the Church would be built. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013.
Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. It contrasts with Gallicanism, the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarch's or state's authority—over the Church is comparable to that of the Pope.
The Reformation was a major movement from Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in part to papal authority. The Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the Western Church, the Latin Church, remained the Catholic Church. Protestantism introduced a new ecclesiology. It is also considered to be one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.
The Great Apostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith founded by Jesus and promulgated through his twelve Apostles.
The Donation of Constantine is a forged Roman imperial decree by which the 4th-century emperor Constantine the Great supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope. Composed probably in the 8th century, it was used, especially in the 13th century, in support of claims of political authority by the papacy. In many of the existing manuscripts, including the oldest one, the document bears the title Constitutum domini Constantini imperatoris. The Donation of Constantine was included in the 9th-century Pseudo-Isidorean decretals.
Lorenzo Valla was an Italian Renaissance humanist, rhetorician, educator and scholar. He is best known for his historical-critical textual analysis that proved that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery, therefore attacking and undermining the presumption of temporal power claimed by the papacy. Lorenzo is sometimes seen as a precursor of the Reformation.
Papal primacy, also known as the primacy of the bishop of Rome, is a Roman Catholic ecclesiological doctrine concerning the respect and authority that is due to the pope from other bishops and their episcopal sees. The doctrine is accepted at a fundamental level by both the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church, though the two disagree on the nature of primacy.
Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church was the second of the three major treatises published by Martin Luther in 1520, coming after the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and before On the Freedom of a Christian. The book-length work was theological, and as such was published in Latin as well as German, the language in which the treatises were written.
Protestantism originated from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The term Protestant comes from the Protestation at Speyer in 1529, where the nobility protested against enforcement of the Edict of Worms which subjected advocates of Lutheranism to forfeit of all their property. However, the theological underpinnings go back much further, as Protestant theologians of the time cited both Church Fathers and the Apostles to justify their choices and formulations. The earliest origin of Protestantism is controversial; with some Protestants today claiming origin back to people in the early church deemed heretical such as Jovinian and Vigilantius.
Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Catholic Church that the Pope, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, the visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful, and as pastor of the entire Catholic Church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered: that, in brief, "the Pope enjoys, by divine institution, supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls."
Lutheranism as a religious movement originated in the early 16th century Holy Roman Empire as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church. The movement originated with the call for a public debate regarding several issues within the Catholic Church by Martin Luther, then a professor of Bible at the young University of Wittenberg. Lutheranism soon became a wider religious and political movement within the Holy Roman Empire owing to support from key electors and the widespread adoption of the printing press. This movement soon spread throughout northern Europe and became the driving force behind the wider Protestant Reformation. Today, Lutheranism has spread from Europe to all six populated continents.
The doctrine of the Trinity, considered the core of Christian theology by Trinitarians, is the result of continuous exploration by the church of the biblical data, thrashed out in debate and treatises, eventually formulated at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 in a way they believe is consistent with the biblical witness, and further refined in later councils and writings. The most widely recognized Biblical foundations for the doctrine's formulation are in the Gospel of John, which possess ideas that originate in Platonism and Greek philosophy.
Propaganda during the Reformation, helped by the spread of the printing press throughout Europe and in particular within Germany, caused new ideas, thoughts, and doctrines to be made available to the public in ways that had never been seen before the sixteenth century. The printing press was invented in approximately 1450 by Johan Gutenberg, and quickly spread to other major cities around Europe; by the time the Reformation was underway in 1517 there were printing centers in over 200 of the major European cities.
In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist is found four times in the New Testament, solely in the First and Second Epistle of John. The Antichrist is announced as the one "who denies the Father and the Son."
The historical roots of Papal primacy can be traced back to the early centuries of Christianity, wherein the Bishop of Rome, commonly referred to as the Pope, gradually accrued increasing authority and recognition. A confluence of historical, theological, and political factors contributed to this development.
In 16th-century Christianity, Protestantism came to the forefront and marked a significant change in the Christian world.
The discipline and administration of the Latin Church underwent important changes from 1517 to 1585 during and Counter-Reformation, specifically at the Council of Trent.
The concept of the Antichrist has been a vigorous one throughout Christian history, and there are many references to it and to associated concepts both in the Bible and in subsequent ecclesiastical writings.
Historicism is a method of interpretation in Christian eschatology which associates biblical prophecies with actual historical events and identifies symbolic beings with historical persons or societies; it has been applied to the Book of Revelation by many writers. The Historicist view follows a straight line of continuous fulfillment of prophecy which starts in Daniel's time and goes through John of Patmos' writing of the Book of Revelation all the way to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship between medieval sects and Protestantism is an issue that has been debated by historians.