LUTERO AND THE UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD OF THE BELIEVER

Abstract

This study portrays the evolution of Luther's thinking that led him to conceive of the concept of the believer's universal priesthood, interpreted by the Roman Apostolic Catholic Church as an affront to the established and established clerical hierarchy, as it opposed papal authority and belittled the hierarchy. and the ministerial priesthood. In this article I discuss the historical and social context of Luther's Europe and Germany, as well as the Catholic Church of the time. I want to show that Luther's thinking came not only from a discontent with behavior that he overly attributed to all the clergy and the Pope himself, but to a more complex situation involving social and economic aspects that were already changing the whole social structure. from Europe and mainly from Germany for centuries. As well-grounded theological aspects of purgatory and indulgences, disseminated and used economically by some members of the clergy and nobility, made Luther compelled to develop a theology that contrasted with that accepted by the Church. The article seeks to look for the roots of Luther's thinking that made him question the ecclesiastical hierarchy.