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Course 12 · Lesson 6.5

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 12 outline

Module 1: The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists

  1. Who the Apostolic Fathers were: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and the Didache
  2. Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century
  3. Why Christians wrote apologies: charges, persecution and public defense
  4. Justin Martyr, philosophy and the Logos

Module 2: Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen

  1. Irenaeus against the Gnostics: the rule of faith and apostolic succession
  2. Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology
  3. Origen: biblical scholarship, allegory and speculation
  4. Heresy and orthodoxy: the scholarly debate about early diversity

Module 3: Creeds and Councils: Nicaea to Chalcedon

  1. From baptismal confession to creed
  2. Arius, the Council of Nicaea (325) and Athanasius
  3. The Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople (381)
  4. Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures
  5. The seven councils and how the churches receive them

Module 4: Augustine, Chrysostom and the Desert

  1. Augustine: life, conversion and the Confessions
  2. Augustine on grace, the Pelagian controversy and the City of God
  3. John Chrysostom: preacher, pastor and critic of wealth
  4. The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Anthony, Macarius and Amma Syncletica

Module 5: The Medieval Church and Scholasticism

  1. The medieval setting: monasteries, cathedral schools and universities
  2. Anselm and the method of scholasticism
  3. Thomas Aquinas: life and the structure of the Summa Theologiae
  4. Aquinas on faith, reason, nature and grace
  5. East and West: the growing divide and the schism of 1054

Module 6: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation

  1. Luther and the question of justification
  2. Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed tradition
  3. The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation
  4. The Council of Trent and Catholic reform
  5. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

Module 7: Modern Theology and Tracing a Doctrine

  1. The Enlightenment and its challenges to inherited doctrine
  2. Schleiermacher, liberal theology and Karl Barth
  3. Vatican II, Orthodox renewal and the evangelical and Pentecostal movements
  4. How to trace a doctrine: development, change and corruption

All courses

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 6.5

What you will learn

  • State how Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox traditions have each interpreted the Reformation.
  • Describe how Catholic and Protestant accounts have changed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
  • Name some non-theological factors that historians add to the story.
  • Practice describing a rival interpretation so that its own adherents would recognize it.

The big idea

The Reformation is remembered differently by those who inherited it. Many Protestants tell it as the recovery of the Gospel from medieval distortion. Many Catholics have told it as a tragic rupture of church unity, and in recent decades as a failure of reform within the church that led to a break. Orthodox Christians usually see it as a quarrel within the Western church, in which both sides share assumptions that the East does not. Historians add political, economic and cultural causes. A fair student learns to state each reading as its own believers would.

Key terms

Historiography
The study of how history has been written, including how interpretations change over time.
Confessionalization
A term used by historians for the process in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by which Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches each built distinct identities, with the support of states.
Rupture
A sharp break. Some accounts describe the Reformation as a break with the past, and others as continuous with it.
Western captivity
A phrase used by the Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky for the idea that Orthodox thought in recent centuries borrowed Western categories. It is also used when describing the common Western framework of the Reformation debate.
Magisterial and radical
Terms used earlier in the course to distinguish reforms supported by authorities from movements that rejected such support.
Ecumenism
The movement toward closer relations and unity among Christian churches.
Teleology
In history, reading earlier events as if they were aimed at a later outcome, which can distort understanding of what people at the time intended.

Background

Almost every account of the Reformation is told from a position. This lesson does not try to decide which position is correct. It describes each as its adherents would, and it adds what historians have found that complicates all of them.

The three traditions also share something. Each tells the story as a story about the church and the Gospel, and each is concerned about what was lost. Seeing the concern behind each reading is the first step toward understanding why the others find it unconvincing.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Protestant reading

In the classic Protestant account, the medieval church had obscured the Gospel of grace under a system of merits, indulgences and clerical power. Luther, Calvin and others recovered the teaching of Scripture on justification by faith, the authority of the Word and the priesthood of all believers. The Reformation is therefore a renewal, a return to the apostolic faith. Protestants are not all alike, and their accounts differ. Lutherans stress the doctrine of justification, Reformed churches stress the Word and God’s glory, and Anglicans describe a reform of the Catholic church in England. Evangelicals speak of the five solas and of the need for personal faith.

A liberal Protestant tradition, in the nineteenth century, told the story as a step toward freedom of conscience and modern thought. Many scholars now caution that this reads later values back into the sixteenth century, since the Reformers themselves usually did not support religious toleration.

Step 2: The Catholic reading

For centuries, Catholic accounts described the Reformation as rebellion: the pride of a monk, the greed of princes and the destruction of church unity. The Council of Trent and the writers who followed it defended the church’s teaching on grace, the sacraments and authority. In the twentieth century, historians such as Joseph Lortz took a different line. Lortz argued that Luther’s protest arose partly from real failures in the late medieval church, and that the break was a tragedy that Catholics should regret as well as Protestants.

The Second Vatican Council spoke of the divisions among Christians as sinful on both sides and called Protestants separated brethren. In 2016, Pope Francis went to Lund, Sweden, to join Lutherans in marking the five hundredth anniversary, and a joint document spoke of moving from conflict to communion. Catholics still hold that the church needs the visible unity under the pope and the apostolic succession of bishops, and see their loss as a real wound.

Step 3: The Orthodox reading

Orthodox Christians were not participants in the Reformation and generally view it as an event within the Western church. Many see the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation as two products of a Western way of thinking that began with the medieval separation from the East, with a legal frame for salvation, a stress on authority and a use of scholastic reasoning. Georges Florovsky and others spoke of a Western captivity of Orthodox theology in later centuries, as Orthodox schools adopted both Catholic and Protestant textbooks.

There was some contact. In the 1570s and 1580s, Lutheran theologians at Tuebingen sent the Augsburg Confession in Greek to Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople, who replied courteously but rejected key points, including justification by faith alone and the sole authority of Scripture apart from the tradition of the Fathers and councils. Later, a patriarch named Cyril Lucaris issued a confession in 1629 with Reformed leanings, which was condemned by the Orthodox in the following decades.

Step 4: What historians add

Historians point to causes beyond theology. The printing press allowed ideas to spread quickly. German princes and city councils saw reasons to oppose the emperor and the pope and to take church property. Economic grievances, rising literacy, nationalism and the problems of the late medieval church, including pluralism, absenteeism and the sale of indulgences, all played a part. The term confessionalization describes how, after about 1555, each church and state worked to build uniform religious communities.

Some historians now speak of a long Reformation, extending over generations as ordinary people absorbed or resisted changes. Others, with the Catholic historian Brad Gregory, ask whether the Reformation’s unintended effects, such as an increase of religious disagreement, contributed to secular modernity, a thesis that is debated.

Step 5: Describing a rival view fairly

A useful exercise is to state another tradition’s reading of the Reformation in a way that a member of that tradition would accept. This requires listening for what they fear has been lost, and for what they think was at stake. It does not require agreeing. It is also a good test of whether the student has understood a view or merely heard it described by its opponents.

In the end, historical research can show what happened and why, but the theological question, whether the Reformation was a recovery, a rupture or a tragic necessity, is answered by each tradition according to its own account of the church.

  1. What is each tradition afraid has been lost or distorted?
  2. Which of the non-theological causes seems to you most important?
  3. Why do liberal Protestant and traditional Protestant tellings differ?
  4. What would it mean for Catholics to regret a break without giving up claims about the church?
  5. Why might the Orthodox see a shared frame in both Protestants and Catholics?
  6. How would you tell the story if you were a historian with no confession?

Examples

A letter to Constantinople

Lutheran scholars sent their confession to the Greek patriarch, hoping for agreement. His replies were polite but firm. Neither side convinced the other, though both learned what the other believed.

A joint commemoration

In 2017, Lutherans and Catholics together marked the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation with services of repentance and thanksgiving. They described a shared history of five hundred years and a shared hope.

A printer’s shop

A pamphlet by Luther might be printed in thousands of copies in a few weeks. That would have been impossible a century earlier. Historians count this as one reason the movement spread so quickly.

Different perspectives

Protestant

Protestants describe the Reformation as a return to the Gospel of grace and the authority of Scripture, and as a protest against corruption. Many also acknowledge that the divisions that followed were sad, and that the Reformers were not free of intolerance.

Catholic

Catholics describe the Reformation as a break in the unity of the church, with a mix of valid concerns and wrong responses. The Church holds that it has preserved the fullness of apostolic teaching and order, and recognizes the Christian life in Protestant communities.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians describe the Reformation as an internal Western affair, rooted in the breach between East and West. They honor the desire to return to Scripture, but hold that the right path is the whole tradition of the church, and they do not accept key Reformation teachings.

Secular and scholarly views

Secular historians study religion alongside politics, economics and technology. They challenge both heroic and tragic stories, and stress variety within every camp. Some scholars study how memory of the Reformation has been used in later nationalism.

Why it matters

How a person tells the story of the Reformation usually shapes how they see their own church and the churches of their neighbors. Learning to see the story from more than one place makes disagreement more honest, and gives a student a way to find common ground without pretending the disagreements are small.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Protestants think Catholics are not Christians, and Catholics think the same of Protestants.

Correction: Official teaching in each tradition today recognizes Christian faith in the other, while disagreeing on the nature of the church and the sacraments. Individual attitudes vary.

Misunderstanding: The Orthodox have a view of the Reformation like Catholics’.

Correction: Orthodox Christians reject both the papal system and central Reformation teachings, and tend to treat both as Western.

Misunderstanding: Historians have shown the Reformation was caused by economics, not religion.

Correction: Most historians hold that religious conviction was real and powerful, and that it interacted with politics and economics. Single-cause accounts have been abandoned.

Misunderstanding: Telling each tradition’s story fairly means pretending they are equal.

Correction: Describing a view fairly does not mean agreeing with it. It means stating it so its adherents would recognize it, and then testing it against evidence.

Knowledge check

How does the classic Protestant account describe the Reformation?

It describes it as the recovery of the Gospel of grace, with justification by faith, the authority of Scripture and the priesthood of all believers, from a medieval system that obscured them. Protestant accounts vary: Lutherans stress justification, Reformed churches stress the Word and God’s glory, and Anglicans speak of reform of the Catholic church in England.

How has the Catholic reading changed?

Older Catholic accounts described rebellion and pride. In the twentieth century, historians such as Joseph Lortz stressed real failures in the late medieval church and spoke of the break as a tragedy. Vatican II spoke of sin on both sides, and Catholics and Lutherans have jointly commemorated the anniversary.

How do Orthodox Christians tend to read the Reformation?

They tend to see it as an event within the Western church, arising from the earlier division of East and West, with Catholics and Protestants sharing a Western frame of thought. Patriarch Jeremias II replied to the Lutherans in the 1570s and 1580s, rejecting justification by faith alone and Scripture apart from tradition.

What do historians add to the theological accounts?

They add political, economic and cultural factors, such as the printing press, the interests of princes, nationalism, rising literacy and the late medieval church’s problems. They speak of confessionalization and a long Reformation. Most hold that religious conviction was real and powerful and not reducible to other causes.

Think it through

  1. Which version of the story did you grow up hearing, and how did you learn it?
  2. What does your tradition’s story leave out?
  3. Can a person hold a conviction and also describe a rival view fairly?
  4. What do you think is the biggest obstacle to a shared account of the Reformation?

Independent assignment

Three paragraphs, three traditions

In your notebook, write one paragraph of about 150 words on the Reformation as a Protestant would tell it, one as a Catholic would, and one as an Orthodox Christian would. Write each so that a member of that tradition would recognize it. Then write 150 words on what the three accounts share. Aim for 500 to 650 words.

Further study