Word: wittenberg
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...when he arrived in Rome in 1510 on a minor mission for his order, the young Augustinian monk of Wittenberg, Martin Luther by name, fell on his knees and cried: "Hail to thee, O Holy Rome!" Luther "went through all the devotions of a pilgrim . . . and earned so many indulgences that he almost wished his parents were dead, so that he might deliver them from purgatory...
Born to War. Much has been made of the dramatic spectacle of the bold monk lustily hammering his propositions to the church door and challenging all and sundry to debate them with him; but, as Durant points out, the truth is more ordinary. The door of Wittenberg's Castle Church was used by clerics as a notice board on which they pinned invitations to debates and news of what would now be called "coming attractions." When Luther posted his theses in 1517, he had no notion that the coming attraction would be history's fiercest spiritual drama...
...storm broke, instantly, violently, as if with one light touch theologians had gone up in spontaneous combustion. The mildly questioning monk turned into a national hero. Rough German humor entered his manner: "If I break wind in Wittenberg," he said, "they smell it in Rome." Soon he boomed his great battle cries: "I have been born to war, and fight with factions and devils. [I] am the rough forester to break a path and make things ready...
...Lothar Wolff sent him to western Germany to get plenty of both. To play Luther, Wolff chose British Actor Niall MacGinnis, surrounded him with a varied cast, and began to shoot scenes in 12th century Maulbronn Cloister, Eberbach Cloister and the castle at Eltville (instead of Luther's Wittenberg, which is in Russian hands). Even more impressive than the authentic sets are the intense, characterful faces of the extras...
...study at Wittenberg, Luther decided that the clanking hierarchy of the 16th century church did not help a man find God, but stood in his way. He found the way to salvation in "personal thinking" about God. The individual must seek his own salvation. Neither the church, as such, nor the decaying medieval society could find it for him. "We may shout into each other's ears," Luther once wrote, "but each man must stand on the ramparts alone...