Martin Luther Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Excommunication=== On 15 June 1520, the Pope warned Luther with the [[papal bull]] (edict) ''[[Exsurge Domine]]'' that he risked [[Excommunication (Catholic Church)#History|excommunication]] unless he recanted 41 sentences drawn from his writings, including the ''[[Ninety-five Theses]]'', within 60 days. That autumn, Eck proclaimed the bull in [[Meissen]] and other towns. Von Miltitz attempted to broker a solution, but Luther, who had sent the pope a copy of ''On the Freedom of a Christian'' in October, publicly set fire to the bull and [[decretal]]s in Wittenberg on 10 December 1520,<ref name="Hillerbrand463">Brecht, Martin. (tr. Wolfgang Katenz) "Luther, Martin," in Hillerbrand, Hans J. (ed.) ''Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 2:463.</ref> an act he defended in ''Why the Pope and his Recent Book are Burned'' and ''Assertions Concerning All Articles''. Luther was excommunicated by Pope {{nowrap|Leo X}} on 3 January 1521, in the bull ''[[Decet Romanum Pontificem]]''.<ref>{{cite book|title=From Babylon to Eternity: The Exile Remembered and Constructed in Text and Tradition|first1=Bob|last1=Becking|first2=Alex|last2=Cannegieter|first3=Wilfred|last3=van er Poll|publisher=Routledge|page=91|year=2016|isbn=978-1-134-90386-3}}</ref> And although the [[Lutheran World Federation]], Methodists and the Catholic Church's [[Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity]] agreed (in 1999 and 2006, respectively) on a "common understanding of justification by God's grace through faith in Christ," the Catholic Church has never lifted the 1521 excommunication.<ref>Wooden, Cindy. "Methodists adapt Catholic-Lutheran declaration on justification." 24 July 2006</ref><ref>David Van Biema, "A Half-Millennium Rift," ''TIME'', 6 July 1998, 80.</ref><ref>Cindy Wooden, "Lutheran World Council OKs joint declaration on justification," ''The Pilot'', 19 June 1998, 20.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page