In Honor of Reformation Day

Tradition holds that one evening Martin Luther came upon a drunken member of his parish in the streets of Wittenberg and rebuked him for public drunkenness. The drunken parishioner searched his coat pockets until he found a folded piece of paper and shook it in Luther's face saying that he had purchased an indulgence from Brother Tetzel that offered "complete forgiveness of all sins- past, present and future."

Martin Luther fled to his study and began listing out all of his grievances with the church's practice of the selling of indulgences and the next day, October 31, 1517, nailed the list to the door of the Wittenberg church.

Religious reform was brought one step closer with every stroke of the hammer that rang out in the Wittenberg square. The actions of Luther brought sudden and widespread attention all across Europe and ultimately to the Pope's door step.

Furthermore, this certain indulgence that Luther encountered on the streets of Wittenberg was unlike any other previous indulgence offered by the Catholic church. This was because the art-loving Pope Leo X was planning to have the St. Peter's Basilica built, sculpted and then painted by Raphael and Michelangelo. This was an exceptionally expensive endeavor and required, in Leo's eyes, an exceptionally desperate measure. When an agreement was met after some shady politicizing with a wealthy bishop in need of more wealth Leo X would be able to achieve the raising of his funds by having his monk John Tetzel devise a plan to raise the money by an "unprecedented sale of indulgences."

The indulgence promised complete forgiveness of past and future sins. He offered sheets of paper that promised the forgiveness of sins without the need of true repentance. One could basically buy their way out of purgatory. Appropriately, the first two of Luther's Ninety-Five theses address this matter:

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said "Repent," he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.

2. This word 'repentance' cannot be understood to mean the sacrament of penance, or the act of confession and satisfaction administered by the priests.

John Tetzel coined the catchy german phrase, "Every time a coin in the coffer rings, A soul from purgatory springs" and misled and terrorized thousands of helpless people, eager to earn the required righteousness of God for salvation.

Additionally, this indulgence required the excommunication of any priest that resisted to honor the indulgence. Luther found himself in the most important moment of his life and had a difficult decision to make.

And so he hammered the heck out of that door.