Europe in the Age of the Reformation

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Martin Luther

Excommunication

So, in 1520, Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther. An excommunication arrives like a summons: an official document delivered personally into the hands of the recipient. From that moment on, the one excommunicated is outside the Church. No Christian is to share bread with him. He may not attend Mass and may not confess his sins. Should he die, he may not be buried in consecrated ground.

Luther received the document, invited his friends over, and publicly burned it. He wrote of the event, calling Leo X the anti-Christ. This again is pure Martin Luther. Others had been excommunicated and had ignored it. Some had even done so successfully. But few had flung the order back in the face of the pope, taking public action that would allow neither side any room to back down gracefully. Luther's friends called it courage and admired him; his enemies called it madness or worse, and feared him.