ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM:

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On the Cellebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther's work will always be more prominent.

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However, it is important to consider other protagonists whose role allowed the Protestant Reformation to spread so rapidly across a large number of countries.

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Some of these men, known as Pre-Reformers, left an important legacy that would prepare the way for the actions of Martin Luther.

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The main precursors of the Reformation were Johannes Tauler (1300-1361), a German Dominican whose sermons inspired Luther, John Wycliffe (1328-1384), known as the "Reformation's Star", a professor at the University of Oxford, England, Jan Hus (1373-1415), professor at the University of Prague, and, Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), an Italian Dominican.

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In addition to these, there were Luther's contemporaries who brought important contributions: Andreas von Karlstadt (1486-1541), professor of theology and Chancellor of the University of Wittenberg, friend of Luther, who in 1516 published his 151 theses against the Catholic Church and William Tyndale (1484-1536) responsible for an important translation of the Bible into English, among others.

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Also to be remembered are the reformist movements prior to the Lutheran Reformation such as the Waldensians, led by Peter Waldo (1140-1217) in France. Another movement that preceded the Reformation of the sixteenth century was that of the followers of John Wyncliff's ideas, known from 1387 as Lolardos.

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The Reformation begun by Martin Luther cleared the way for new reformist movements, such as Calvinism and Anglicanism, with figures as Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), William Farel (1489-1565), John Calvin (1509-1564), Theodore Beza (1513-1605), and Jan Laski (1499-1560), a Polish reformer, and John Knox (1514-1572), a Scottish reformer. The latter, influenced by George Wishart (c.1513-1546).

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The Radical or Anabaptist's  Reformation should not be forgotten as well as the current view of a Lutheran and a Catholic about this very important event that occured five hundred years ago.

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