PROCEEDINGS OF THE LATVIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Reform, reformation and counter-reformation. Common and distinct features. Europe, Latvia and Bishopric of Cēsis

Keywords: reform, reformation, counter-reformation, Martin Luther’s Theses
Language: In Latvian

The year of 2017 has entered the history of Latvia as a year of commemoration of the Reformation of Martin Luther in 1517. It is a good chance for both the evaluation of the effects of Luther’s Reformation on Latvia’s history and culture, and also for projecting Luther’s Reforms on the axis of the whole reform movement in the church history. Already in 9th century, there were demands for reforms in Carolingian Empire. The Benedictine Monastic tradition from Cluny in the 10th and 11th centuries is often called reform monasticism, and the fight against simony, clerogamy and laymen investiture in the 11th century is called Gregorian Reformation. Demands for reforms have been present throughout the whole history of Christianity and in every denomination.

In the 13th–14th centuries, theologians (like Pietro Valdes, John Wycliffe, Jan Huss) asked not only for reform of the level of morality and observation of the canonical law but also for structural and doctrinal changes in the Church. However, these so called pre-Reformators did not succeed during their lifetime but their doctrines survived although supported by small groups of adepts. The victory of Reformation of Martin Luther, or Jean Calvin, or Henry the Eight in some European countries was marked by epochal changes in the paradigm of Church history periods: instead of total Christendom, the new state model being religion under the state control — Catholic, Protestant or Ortodox