In 1517 Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 theses against the Catholic Church to the door of All Saint’s Church in Witternberg, Germany. His daring shook Europe and the debate he started provoked a great division inside the Church. While big southern nations like Italy or Spain remained catholic, many countries in Central and Northern Europe embraced Protestant ideas.
The breaking of the Church in two directions changed forever the way devote people acted towards Christianity. During the next hundred years, Catholics and Protestants would hate each other and fight in lots of wars. The differences were quite big: while Catholics maintained obedience to the Pope, Protestants did not. The also rejected any kind of ecclesiastical hierarchy (bishops, cardinals…) and abolished religious orders (Catholics had many many religious orders). Under catholic rule only priests could read the Bible (and they could not marry), while in Protestan nations anyone was invited to interprete the Holy Book and priests could have a private life and marry a woman.
Without doubt, though, the key difference in Protestant-Catholic feud was the idea of salvation: Catholics believed that salvation was achieved through good deeds and Protestants pointed faith as the only way to salvation.
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Writing Humanism.
