Ninety-five Theses

The Ninety-five Theses, formally titled the Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, is a list of propositions for academic debate written in 1517 by Martin Luther, then a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg in Germany. Luther's theses attacked the Roman Catholic Church's sale of indulgences, certificates the Church sold as a means of reducing the punishment for sin, arguing that true repentance could not be purchased and that the pope had no authority over purgatory. According to a long-standing tradition, Luther posted the theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church on 31 October 1517, though the document's original purpose was scholarly debate rather than public protest; it was quickly translated and circulated widely thanks to the recently developed printing press. The Ninety-five Theses are retrospectively regarded as the spark that launched the Protestant Reformation and, with it, the emergence of Protestantism as a distinct branch of Western Christianity.