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Martin Luther was excommunicated in January of 1521. Most
of Europe was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor, who was
crowned by the Pope and asked the Pope for approval of most
of his decisions. The Holy Roman Emperor, for example, might
collect taxes used to support the church. Things were
very different 500 years ago, and being in trouble with the
Pope meant that Luther was also in trouble with the Emperor.
The Emperor decreed that Luther could travel to the Diet of
Worms in April of 1521 without being arrested. It was
here that Luther would be put on trial for his writing and
preaching.
The Diet (pronounced dee-et) of Worms (pronounced Verms) was a meeting of the Holy Roman Emperor
and the princes of all the German states. The Pope was
not there, but he gave Johann Eck the honored
position of questioning Luther. Eck was a German whom
the Pope said was "the dauntless champion of the one true
faith." He was a very well educated man in church
history and practice, and had debated and won arguments
against others who found fault with the Catholic Church.
High ranking church leaders from throughout the
Empire and from Rome arrived.
Luther's writings were posing a great threat to the power of the Pope. They had been
distributed throughout Germany, but Luther wrote them in the
privacy of his rooms. The Pope believed that forcing
Luther to respond to Eck in a room full of educated and powerful men,
facing certain imprisonment for his heresies (disagreements
with Church law and practice) would certainly scare Luther (who was after all just a lowly monk) into saying
that everything that he had been preaching and writing was
wrong.
Eck placed Luther's published works on a table and asked the
monk if he had written them. Luther answered that
he had written all of them, but not all of his works were on the table and he
could provide them if Eck wanted them. Eck ignored the
offer. Eck's second question was whether or not Luther would
admit that any of his writings were wrong, especially 41
sentences that a special group of experts had found to
contradict Church teaching. Luther asked for time
to consider his answer.
The next day his response was clear
and pointed, "Unless I shall be convinced by Scripture or by clear reason ... I neither can nor
will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor
righteous to act against conscience." He is reported to have closed his remarks with the
simple but courageous words that have come down through the ages:
Here I stand.
I can do no other.
God help me.
Amen.
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