Protestant is an umbrella term generally used to describe a vast variety of churches that are neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. The name comes from the “protests” by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others against abuses of power and some doctrines in the Roman Catholic Church. The Reformers were people of the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries who sought to bring change to Christianity in Europe. Their writings continue to exert substantial influence over hundreds of millions of believers today.

Historically, the Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to, as the word implies, reform Christianity. Luther and the others saw their efforts not as bringing anything new to the faith but as restoring biblical teaching and practice established prior to the development of Rome’s papal system. They didn’t intend initially to form a new church organization—they did so only after they were excommunicated (removed from membership) and threatened with death by the Catholic Church hierarchy. The congregations that followed the Reformers became the Protestant churches.

At the dawn of the sixteenth century, Christian theology in Europe was in trouble. The popular theology of the church had fallen prey to ritualism, superstitions, and lifeless Scholasticism. Some church leaders and theologians of Roman Catholicism were implying that grace was a commodity to be earned or even bought. Merit had become a key term in Catholic soteriology (doctrine of salvation). One could be truly saved only to the extent that he or she had gained sufficient merit before God through faith and works of love. Faith had come to be interpreted as faithfulness to the teachings and practices of the official church, and works of love had come to be interpreted as buying indulgences, paying for masses for souls in purgatory and taking expensive pilgrimages to view relics, as well as giving alms to the poor, doing penance, participating in the sacraments, and carrying out devotional practices such as prayer and meditation.

Huss, John (c. 1372–1415), in Czech Jan Hus, Bohemian Reformer. Born of a peasant family at Husinec (whence ‘Huss’), he entered Prague university c. 1390 and took his Master’s degree in 1396. In 1401 he was elected Dean of the Philosophical Faculty. Having been ordained priest in 1400, he soon became a well-known preacher in Czech at the ‘Bethlehem Chapel’ at Prague.

[The writings of John Wycliffe had stirred his interest in the Bible, and these same writings were causing a stir in Bohemia (technically the northeastern portion of today’s Czech Republic, but a general term for the area where the Czech language and culture prevailed). The University of Prague was already split between Czechs and Germans, and Wycliffe’s teachings only divided them more. Early debates hinged on fine points of philosophy (the Czechs, with Wycliffe, were realists; the Germans nominalists). But the Czechs, with Hus, also warmed up to Wycliffe’s reforming ideas; though they had no intention of altering traditional doctrines, they wanted to place more emphasis on the Bible, expand the authority of church councils (and lessen that of the pope), and promote the moral reform of clergy. Thus Hus began increasingly to trust the Scriptures, “desiring to hold, believe, and assert whatever is contained in them as long as I have breath in me.”]

A political struggle ensued, with the Germans labeling Wycliffe and his followers heretics. With the support of the king of Bohemia, the Czechs gained the upper hand, and the Germans were forced to flee to other universities.

The situation was complicated by European politics, which watched as two popes vied to rule all of Christendom. A church council was called at Pisa in 1409 to settle the matter. It deposed both popes and elected Alexander V as the legitimate pontiff (though the other popes, repudiating this election, continued to rule their factions). Alexander was soon “persuaded”—that is, bribed—to side with Bohemian church authorities against Hus, who continued to criticize them. Hus was forbidden to preach and excommunicated, but only on paper: with local Bohemians backing him, Hus continued to preach and minister at Bethlehem Chapel.

Hus was a powerful preacher as well as a scholar and theologian. He held it as a basic truth that Scripture possesses unique authority as the ‘law of God’. At the same time he considered the tradition of the church, especially the teaching of the early Fathers up to *Augustine, to be a source of doctrine, but with the proviso that it too was subject to the superior authority of the Bible. The same proviso applied to the declarations of church leaders at all times. Even laymen were entitled to challenge such declarations if they were inconsistent with Scripture. For this reason he firmly believed that the Bible should be made available in translation to the public.

To spare the city, Hus withdrew to the countryside toward the end of 1412. He spent the next two years in feverish literary activity, composing a number of treatises. The most important was The Church, which he sent to Prague to be read publicly. In it he argued that Christ alone is head of the church, that a pope “through ignorance and love of money” can make many mistakes, and that to rebel against an erring pope is to obey Christ.

When he saw he wasn’t to be given a forum for explaining his ideas, let alone a fair hearing, he finally said, “I appeal to Jesus Christ, the only judge who is almighty and completely just. In his hands I plead my cause, not on the basis of false witnesses and erring councils, but on truth and justice.” He was taken to his cell, where many pleaded with him to recant. On July 6, 1415, he was taken to the cathedral, dressed in his priestly garments, then stripped of them one by one. He refused one last chance to recant at the stake, where he prayed, “Lord Jesus, it is for thee that I patiently endure this cruel death. I pray thee to have mercy on my enemies.” He was heard reciting the Psalms as the flames engulfed him.

His executioners scooped up his ashes and tossed them into a lake so that nothing would remain of the “heretic,” but some Czechs collected bits of soil from the ground where Hus had died and took them back to Bohemia as a memorial.