Until then, there had happened, in the History of Christianity, many heresies and schisms. Heresy is a word that has origin in the Greek, haíresis, and means divergence of opinion in relation to the orthodoxy established by the Church. Schism means rupture, when people with the same thought break relations. The Church worked, since the beginning, with the Canon, the Apostolicity and a form of structuring its dogmas.

All those who placed themselves against it and who had another form of understanding the Divine, or even those who did not have any religion, were, for the Church, considered heretics.

However, the word heresy, in the course of the centuries, gained a pejorative tone. According to the religious formation that was occurring throughout the centuries, the heretics were those who placed themselves against the power of the Pope and of the Church and, therefore, needed to be punished and exterminated.

Understanding better, we say that, in the beginning, heresy was a form of interpretation, not necessarily something sinful, a blasphemy or something unacceptable. Already in this century, the heretics were understood as those who placed themselves against God and against the religion. It was necessary to combat them and take them to an inquisitorial tribunal. And who was the judge of this tribunal, if not the own ecclesiastical authority of the time?

In 1517, happened the fifth schism, the greatest of all, which marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, led by Martin Luther. His initial life was not turned to religion; he wanted to be a lawyer. His father desired that the son be well-positioned in society and, at that time, studying Law was one of the best options.

Historians tell that, a certain time, Martin Luther walked when began a strong storm, accompanied by thunder. Then, he prayed to Saint Anne, mother of Mary, asking protection, for he was afraid. He promised that, if he were saved, he would become a monk. Some historians affirm that he suffered from depression and deep sadness. Soon the storm passed and he fulfilled the promise. He entered the first monastery that he found, the Monastery of Saint Augustine, becoming an Augustinian monk. His father became enraged and did not conform with the decision of the son.

He was very studious, dedicated to religion, and was ordained priest. However, he began to question some points of the Church. His questionings were:

Sale of indulgences. In this century, began, with Julius II, the project of construction of the Basilica of Saint Peter. For that, he chose a personality very close, Johann Tetzel, famous Dominican friar in charge of the sale of the letters of indulgence, to collaborate in a financial scheme and give beginning to the construction of the basilica.

Tetzel verified with the people which sins they had committed and, according to a table that he created, stipulated a price for each sin. The people paid the corresponding value, settling their errors. It was thus that they began to fund the basilica. He did this in the name of the Pope, and this practice became common inside the churches. This horrified Martin Luther!

The authority of the Pope. Until then, the Pope was the main reference and all followed him. For Martin Luther, this was wrong, for the people should follow the Scriptures and not that which the Pope said.

The necessity of priests as intermediaries between the people and God. For him, it was possible to speak directly with God, without intermediaries. He created the concept of the Universal Priesthood of the Faithful, according to which it was not necessary a priest to address God.

The Bible in Latin. How could the people read the Bible if it was written in Latin? And how to understand the mass, if the priests celebrated it with their backs to the faithful, in a language and in a ritual that they did not understand?

The form of salvation. For him, the important were not the works, but the faith. If someone believed that Jesus was his Savior, he would receive His grace and would be purified. He based himself on the Letter to the Romans, chapter 1, verse 17: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written: the just shall live by faith”. This was a spark in his mind: it was, then, the faith that saved the human being.

He questioned, also, the form of belief of the Jews, for they must fulfill the 613 laws attributed to Moses. For Luther, there was no necessity to fulfill all these laws; it was enough to have faith in Jesus, because this faith attracts the grace of God, and that was enough. He created, thus, the doctrine of justification by faith.

Second passage: Romans 5:1: “Having been justified by faith, we are in peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. Justified means to be saved, to be graced, and, for that, it was necessary to have faith. He also questioned the Catholics who believed in the necessity of works, sustaining that it was not enough only to have faith, being necessary to practice the good.

Third passage: Romans 10:9: “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. That is, it was necessary to confess these words.

Armed with all this, he went to the Church of the Castle, also known as Church of All Saints, in the city of Wittenberg, in Germany, and fixed on the door his ninety-five theses, on October 31, 1517. This historical mark gave beginning to the Protestant Reformation.

In a first moment, he did not want to break with the Church; he desired that it returned to be as in the first centuries. He was very courageous in proposing his theses, even believing to be contributing to the good of the own Church. However, it did not accept them nor agreed with them. The ninety-five theses can still be seen, for they are engraved in Latin on the bronze door of the same church.

He was a very important figure in this century. He had many merits, but also committed mistakes in his conduct. Without him, we would not have the Reformation. However, that which he questioned and condemned in the Church — the persecutions — he ended up reproducing. There was, even, a Protestant inquisition that took people to the stake.

Another character of this century was John Calvin. He was as learned as Luther, but had different ideas. Luther still maintained certain proximity with the Church and desired to reform it. The Church, in this period, published a bull — official document with papal seal — related to the Diet of Worms (1521), condemning the theses of Luther, threatening him with excommunication and demanding that he retract publicly. However, he did not submit and passed to be considered heretic by the Church.

John Calvin, on the contrary, wanted to break with the Church, for his form of understanding the Gospel and Christ was different. Also for him it was not the Pope the maximum authority, but the Scriptures. He was French, but became notable in Geneva, in Switzerland. Among his religious proposals, known as the Five Points of Calvinism, stands out predestination: the idea that the person is born graced or not, according to the will of God. Those truly chosen would never lose salvation. This conception generated controversies, for many interpreted it as an attempt to explain the different social conditions.

The Calvinists achieved a greater expansion than the Lutherans, for these maintained many Catholic elements, including several liturgies, like communion. John Calvin broke in a more radical way with the Church. His followers did not worship images of saints, did not adopt pompous liturgies and reduced significantly the dogmas. For them, baptism was enough; the rest was constructed by the faithful in his relation with the Word of God.

Today we have various Protestant groups. Among them are the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Methodists, the Adventists and many others. Another group is that of the Pentecostals, who, besides faith as instrument of salvation, admit the gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit. In these churches, there are prayers in loud voice, healings and spiritual phenomena that are usually associated to mediumistic manifestations.

We have the Assembly of God, God is Love, Revived Church and other similar denominations, in which these gifts of the Holy Spirit are worked. They are churches associated to Pentecost, reason why they receive the name of Pentecostals. Their members believe in the manifestation of the spiritual gifts, including speaking in different languages. They are more recent movements, arisen from the 19th century. Already in classical Protestantism there are not these mediumistic manifestations.

In the third group, we have the neopentecostal churches, a typical phenomenon of the 20th century. Besides the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, they emphasize the theology of prosperity. According to this interpretation, it is not necessary to wait only for the Kingdom of the Heavens; it is possible to be happy, prosperous and successful already in this life. This derives from the reading that they make of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd and nothing will be lacking to me”. For the neopentecostals, this “nothing” includes material prosperity and social projection. Many of these churches have television stations, representatives in Congress and strong presence in society.

It is interesting to observe that, according to the professor of Sciences of Religions Severino Celestino, scholar of the Bible who learned Hebrew to better understand it and teach it, this verse of the psalm would have been translated in an erroneous way. For him, the correct would be: “The Lord is my Shepherd; He will not be lacking to me”.

There is also the International Church of the Grace of God and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, in which the question of prosperity is quite emphasized. They also work with the idea of the struggle between good and evil and defend that those graced by God can be powerful already in this life.

There also exist the so-called narcopentecostals, a more recent phenomenon, already of the 21st century. They have their religion, believe in God, but, even so, commit diverse excesses. In sum, there are religions of the most varied types, and each one follows that which better suits it, without that any be discredited or judged, for: “To each one according to his works...”.

In this century arose a segment called anabaptist. Its members did not follow the Pope and were completely pacifists. For them, no religious movement should be carried out with violence. They also defended that Church and State could not mix, for, when this occurs, the focus of religion is lost. According to this current, baptism should not occur in childhood, but rather in adulthood, when each person could consciously confirm his ideal of living with God.

The Calvinists gave origin to several of the Protestant branches that we know currently. There arose, in this period, in France, a leader called Hugues de Besançon, who gave origin to the French Huguenots. Who does not remember the Night of Saint Bartholomew? We will come to know it further ahead.

In Switzerland, another important character was Ulrich Zwingli, theologian and principal leader of the Protestant Reformation in his country. He was very close to the ideas of John Calvin and Martin Luther. He defended the Bible as the only authority and sustained that it should be read by all. He eliminated Catholic dogmas, like celibacy and the worship of images, preaching that the Word of God was the only safe guide for faith.

In England, occurred the Anglican Reformation, in 1534, quite different from the others, for it did not arise from theological divergences, but from the desire of King Henry VIII to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, who had not given him male heirs. As the Pope did not authorize the separation so that he could marry another woman, his lover Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church, cutting the ties with Rome.

The Anglican Church has this peculiarity: it was born from the desire of Henry VIII to separate from his wife and marry again, something that the Catholic Church did not allow. More than five hundred years have passed, and its faithful continue numerous. Historians affirm that this was not the only reason for the rupture. The king also desired to exercise control over the own Church and to free himself from papal authority.

One of the branches of Protestantism that, indirectly, follows the ideas of John Calvin is the Presbyterian Church, considered one of the historical churches, as well as the Baptist and the Adventist. They are denominations with strong focus on faith, believing that Jesus is the Savior, who died for us and that the grace of God is the instrument of salvation.

The Methodist Church will arise later, in England of the 18th century, being led by the brothers John and Charles Wesley. Its symbol is a small flame, which refers to the phenomena of Pentecost, when tongues of fire descended over the disciples, who began to speak in different languages.

There was a great outbreak of discontent and a search for new paths to live the faith in this century. However, the Protestant Reformation also brought very positive aspects, among them the valorization of work. Until then, work was frequently seen in a negative way. The word “work” has origin in the Latin tripalium, instrument of torture used to cause physical suffering. With time, the term came to represent the arduous activities of the daily life.

John Calvin defended that work dignifies the human being, making him better, and that it was necessary to work. In this aspect, his contribution was very important. Max Weber, sociologist and economist born in Erfurt, in Germany, author of the work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, sustains that Calvinism and Protestantism created an ethic of work that favored the emergence of modern capitalism.

In this century, the New Continent began to take form, and a country, among others, was gaining strength until becoming the great world reference of the present: the United States of America. It all began with a group of English Protestants known as Puritans. They desired to eliminate certain rituals and the episcopal hierarchy of the Anglican Church. For this reason, they were persecuted and forced to flee. Many crossed the Atlantic toward North America. Subject for the next century...

We do not want that anyone conclude that we are making an acidic or critical reading of the religion of anyone. This is not the proposal of this work. If someone feels that we were excessively critical at some point of this exposition about the History of Christianity, let it attribute this to our imperfections. We are only presenting the facts, many of which are unknown to the majority of people. And, really, some of them are quite impactful.

The work of Luther was magnificent. What he managed to accomplish in Western Europe represented an effective break of a hegemony that was important for the emergence of a more plural vision of the world. The same can be said of John Calvin and of the other characters here mentioned.

They are very interesting movements, which respond to the human anxiety of understanding how the communication between the creature and the Creator occurs. Praised be all these magnificent creatures, who left excellent contributions for the improvement of humanity.

To the eyes of the one who studies, the historical phenomenon is a phenomenon of observation and learning, never of judgment.

The paths are many, but all of them lead to the same point...