Reformation - Religion Paper

Much of world religion is based on a need to limit the quest for identity and the fear of the unknown. This prevents pain for its adherents, usually by limiting their disappointment and by finding answers. The religion gives people something to have faith in and for some a reason to exist. This is why religion or forms of it have been living for so long. However religions went through numerous of difficulties because its dark sides. The reformation is one example. This text will be explaining why the reformation took place when Leo X was the pope. Many factors created the situation which made this outbreak possible.   The three factors chosen are the printing press, the abusive papal power and Martin Luther.


First of all, one of the main historical events that explain why the reformation emerged during Leo X is the invention of the printing press. Before the reformation the religion was omnipresent in everyone’s life and controlled everything. People where conditioned to put religion in the centre of their life. But with the renaissance people started rediscovering ancient Greek and roman texts and with the help of the printing press, which was invented around 1440, multiple examples of these books were available to society. By having at their disposition not only secular books, it opened people minds. The population started to understand that they had a life besides religion. Then because the printing press made the production easier and cheaper a wider amount of the population could have access to books. Therefore it was a stimulation to learn how to read. The awareness towards new ideologies became to increase because men like Martin Luther, Erasmus, Jean Calvin and more. All of them wrote books in which they were criticizing and challenging the church. Even though it was completely a new way of thinking, the printing press was there to spread the information quickly and accurately.   It was the principal weapon of the reformist. “The difference between...