Our Sacred Roots: The Priesthood of All Believers

After the longest season of the Church Year, our calendar ends with three significant days of remembrance and readiness. On October 31 we commemorate the protestant reformation of the church (Reformation Day), and on November 1 we anticipate the gathering of all believers together at his throne, while remembering his martyrs and generations gone by (All Saints Day). On the last Sunday before Advent, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King (also called the Feast of the Reign of Christ) which points to that day when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Reformation Day (semper reformanda) Reformation Day is the Christian festival day celebrated on October 31 to mark the Reformation, and is observed largely by Protestant mainline churches, and in particular, by both Lutheran and some Reformed churches. During the time of 1516–17, Johann Tetzel, a friar of the Dominican order and official commissioner of the Pope for indulgences, was given the assignment to go to Germany and to raise money through the sale of indulgences to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, wrote to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, levying his argument against the scandal surrounding the sale and purchase of indulgences (a Roman Catholic practice to shorten terms of dead loved ones in Purgatory). Luther enclosed in his letter to Archbishop Albrecht a copy of his case entitled “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” a document which later came to be referred to as The 95 Theses . Luther probably did not intend for his views to be taken as undermining the church; he more probably viewed his letter as a reasoned scholarly, spiritual objection to these kinds of church allowances. Nevertheless, the thrust of Luther’s argument came to be seen as a direct challenge to the pope’s authority and policies, and this simple

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