Marcell von nemes biography of martin luther

Five hundred years ago this month, Augustinian Saxon priest Martin Luther, an obscure university professor in Germany, rose to prominence and became a household name in Christendom.

From one moment 500 years ago, Luther (1480-1546), initially known only by his family, friends and academic colleagues, became one of the most studied and written about individuals in the history of Western civilization. Indeed, one biographer of Luther boasted, “In most big libraries, books by and about Martin Luther occupy more shelf space than those concerned with any other human being except Jesus of Nazareth.”

Despite the amount of scholarship dedicated to Luther, a false narrative perpetuated by Protestant propaganda often obscures the real man. This false narrative portrays Luther as a valiant monk fighting against the powerful papacy in order to reform the corrupt Catholic Church of the 16th century. Attacked by the Church for his heroic defense of the average