Thoughts on “Reformation Day”

As noted in multiple venues, this past Wednesday, October 31, was the putative 490th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation—actually, of the posting of Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences (i.e., the “Ninety-five Theses”) on the doors (i.e., announcement board) of the Castle Church at Wittenberg in 1517. However, I have long doubted that this is the most adequate date on which to observe such an anniversary. For example, a better candidate might be December 10, as it was on that date in 1520 that Dr Luther publicly burned the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which condemned his teachings and threatened him with excommunication. That also seems like a better year to commemorate overall: while Zwingli claimed to have begun preaching the Reformation Gospel in 1516, it was not until 1520 that he finally renounced his papal pension of 50 gulden a year, awarded him for his public support of the use of Swiss mercenaries in the secular affairs of the Papacy. This was, then, the year of clean breaks.

I might add here that, since the celebration of permanent ecclesiastical fractures appears to be so cheerful an affair to so many, another Luthero-Zwinglian anniversary should be kept in mind for festive commemoration: October 4 was the closing date of the ultimately failed Marburg Colloquy of 1529, convened to attempt a resolution between Luther and Zwingli’s respective views on the Eucharist (and by extension, on Christology) and to achieve a unified Protestant front. This date marks, then, the anniversary of the (quite permanent) failure of the Reformation movements to achieve doctrinal, and therefore also ecclesiastical, unity.