Martin Luther
Reformer Martin Luther, oil on panel by Lucas Cranach, 1529; in the Uffizi, Florence.
Martin Luther
German religious leader
Martin Luther (born November 10, 1483, Eisleben, Saxony [now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany]—died February 18, 1546, Eisleben) was a German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions, mainly Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, the Anabaptists, and the anti-Trinitarians. He...