7 important dates in the Reformation life of Martin Luther
Luther excommunicated – Jan. 3, 1521
In response to Luther’s writings and his refusal to recant, Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther by issuing a papal bull titled “Decet Romanum Pontificem,” in which he referred to the reformer as “the slave of a depraved mind.”
“Martin … has scorned to revoke his errors within the prescribed interval and to send us word of such revocation, or to come to us himself; nay, like a stone of stumbling, he has feared not to write and preach worse things than before against us and this Holy See and the Catholic faith, and to lead others on to do the same,” read the edict.
“He has now been declared a heretic; and so also others, whatever their authority and rank, who have cared nought of their own salvation but publicly and in all men’s eyes become followers of Martin’s pernicious and heretical sect.”
The excommunication order was built off an earlier document, known as the “Exsurge Domine,” which denounced Luther’s views and referred to him as a “wild boar.”
