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[Cheering] Rosendo: Today on "Travelscope," I continue my journey along the path of the Protestant Reformation through Switzerland, the country of John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, and through Germany, the home of Martin Luther.

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Rosendo: Legend holds that on October 31, 1517, an angry Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to this door in Wittenberg's castle church.

Most likely, he was following common practice and posting a notice of an upcoming academic discussion that he, as master of arts and sacred theology and the duly appointed lecturer on these subjects, was organizing.

In 1517, Pope Leo X's representatives were selling indulgences to raise funds for the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

In Thesis 86, Luther states, "Since the Pope is the wealthiest of wealthy men, "why does he not build St. Peter with his own money rather than the money of indigent believers?"

In Thesis 52, Luther rejects the idea that salvation can be bought.

"It is vain to rely on salvation "by letters of indulgence, even if the Pope himself were to pledge his own soul for their validity."

Luther's 95 theses distill the belief that we're forming that the Bible is the only religious power and salvation is only achieved by faith through repentance and God's grace, not by the intercession of intermediaries, which challenged the Pope's authority.

His disputation on the power and efficacy of indulgences was a literary shot heard round Europe that ignited a spiritual flame fated to change the Christian church and the people it professed to serve.

IN 2017, Germany and Switzerland will begin to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation with tours, events, and festivals in both countries.

I continue my journey along the Reformation trail in Eisleben.

I'm in Eisleben in the birth home of Martin Luther.

It's a museum today.

It's been a museum since 1693.

He was born on November the 10th, 1483, baptized on November the 11th in St. Peter and Paul Church.

And although the family only stayed here less than a year, through the course of his life, Luther came back many times, and because he was baptized here, always considered this his hometown.

From Eisleben, Luther's family moves to Mansfeld.

They were from wealthy farming and mining families.

His father becomes a smelter, and his prosperity affords Luther the education that he receives.

Later in life, Luther downplays his privileged past, and in fact, the rich and the powerful are often demonized along with the Pope in his sermons and writings.

Just 57 miles from his birthplace, in Erfurt, Luther began his studies in theology and law in 1501.

Four years later, he interrupted his education, when outside Erfurt, he encountered a terrifying thunderstorm.

[Loud thunder] With lightning bolts striking about him, he cried out, "Save me, Saint Anne, and I'll become a monk."

The patron saint of minors spared him, and two weeks later, against his father's wishes, he entered the Augustinian Monastery.

[Choir singing] While Luther began as a monk, in Zurich, Switzerland's Huldrych Zwingli was the people's priest.

He came to Grossmunster Church in 1519 and soon began to preach against the Catholic mass and the worship of images, relics, and saints.

Forming an alliance with Zurich's civil powers, he spread the Reformation's ideas throughout Switzerland.

Once you start learning about the reformation, you start to realize that it wasn't just a monolithic thing with Luther in Germany and the theses on the church and everybody was in agreement.

There were disputes.

What was the Reformation here in Zurich?

Zwingli came here as the people's pastor.

In 1519, he preached his first sermon in the Grossmunster Cathedral.

He was preaching in German.

People flocked to church to hear him.

He was speaking about abuses that were going on in society and our responsibility to help.

Every day, they offered soup to the poor people in front of the Grossmunster.

He initiated education for all people so that every person could read.

He wanted people to be able to read the Bible.

What is Zurich actually going to be doing for that celebration?

We'll be doing concerts, musicals, tours, and it will continue all through the Twenties.

Rosendo: No town has more reason to celebrate the momentous events of the Reformation than Marburg, Germany.

Noted today for its peaceful location along the River Lahn and the quaint half-timbered buildings and cobblestone streets of its old town, for centuries, Marburg was a pilgrimage center for devotees of its patron saint, St. Elizabeth.

That all ended when Prince Philip I embraced the Reformation, ousted the Benedictine monks from their riverside monastery, where, in 1527, he founded the world's first Protestant university.

Two years later, Philip hosted, in Marburg Castle, the Marburg Colloquy in order to better unite the forces of the Reformation by reconciling the theological differences of two of its greatest minds.

Professor, set the scene for me.

Prince Philip I, who had established the first Protestant university here, uses those credentials to call all these great thinkers of the Reformation here.

What were they coming for, and what was accomplished here?

In the year 1529, a diet had been had at Speyer, and this diet had prohibited all church reformations as had been done before, and war for religion seemed imminent.

So Prince Philip sought to gather an alliance of Protestant princes, but there was disagreement between Martin Luther at Wittenberg and Huldrych Zwingli at Zurich.

So he brought them here to reconcile their differences and form unity.

Well, was anything agreed upon?

Luther and Zwingli and 8 other leading theologians signed the Marburg Articles, 15 articles of faith in which they declared to be at agreement.

Actually, in 14 1/2.

14 1/2.

They agreed on all the great points of Protestant belief in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, the redemption, the justification by faith alone.

All these points were said to be common belief of the Protestants.

I know that little half was one of the most important spiritual points.

But perhaps we can find a more fitting setting for us to discuss that point than a meeting hall.

[Organ playing] So, this is Marburg Castle Chapel from about 1500's.

It's the chapel in which the young Prince Philip attended his first services and was baptized.

It is said that Zwingli and Luther preached within this chapel.

And do you think they used that opportunity to promote their half of that last point we were talking about?

They didn't.

They reserved that to the debates.

That point is one of the most important points, and it's the one of the Eucharist.

Yes, the last supper of Christ with his apostles was a point of disagreement.

Luther thought that every participant in the Eucharist receives the body and the blood of Christ.

For Zwingli, this was an indecent conception.

He said Jesus, God, the creator of all things cannot be thought to be confined to material elements like bread and wine.

Bread and wine are only symbols.

But they agreed to disagree?

That is what they did.

A lot of the institutions, a lot of the freedoms, a lot of the rights that we have now stem back to the Reformation.

Yes, you're perfectly right.

It stems back to these early modern times.

Rosendo: While Zwingli and Luther were debating the Eucharist, radical reformers demanded a more extreme Reformation.

Chief among them were the Anabaptists of Switzerland, forbears of the Mennonite and Amish of the United States.

Pacifists, Anabaptists rejected military service, and advocates of separation of church and state, they refused to pledge allegiance and pay taxes.

They were considered heretics by the church, agitators by the civil authorities, and devout eccentrics by the Reformers.

Foremost, they believed in adult baptism, saying the right baptism of Christ is preceded by teaching and oral confession of faith.

Along the banks of the Limmat River, Felix Manz was famously baptized to death.

They were persecuted, hunted, and executed by Catholics and Protestants alike throughout Europe.

In the Emmental region of Switzerland, historic public structures like the Trachselwald Castle became sites of trials, imprisonment, and torture, and private dwellings became hiding places, like the Fankhauser farm in Hinter Hutten.

So here is the Anabaptists' hiding place.

There's a fake wall in the smoke room?

Yes.

So when they came, they couldn't tell there was this space there.

How long would your husband's ancestor have to hide there?

We think about 7 hours.

The bounty hunters, they would search the whole property, the whole barn and everything?

Exactly, yes.

They knew about the hiding place.

Oh, they did?

Yeah, but not where.

What was it about the Anabaptists that the civil authorities and even the Reformers really didn't like?

Because there is written in the Bible don't kill, and so they said, "We don't take a weapon and go into the war."

And you've done this whole presentation here.

You're introducing people to the Anabaptists and to your family's history.

Why?

At the beginning, there were just Amish people, American people came over here, and they asked for the hiding place.

And they were so interested in the machines, and then I started to research.

I also start to read the Bible.

And this changed my life.

So through doing this, you came to your own faith?

Yes.

Yeah.

Ha ha!

Like they say, the Lord moves in mysterious ways.

Exactly.

Ha ha ha!

Rosendo: Separation of church and state was an Anabaptist belief that was at odds with Zwingli's Reformation.

In order to enact his reforms, Zwingli sought and won the support of the Zurich town council.

In fact, a man of peace, he mixed God's and the state's business to such an extent that he led Zurich's Protestant army against his country's Catholic cantons.

"Not to fear is the armor," said Zwingli, yet Matthew 26:52 states, "All those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."

He was killed on the field of battle in 1531.

In Geneva, his work was continued by French theologian John Calvin.

This temple was Calvin's temple.

This is where he did a lot of his preaching.

You know, of all the Reformers, today people have a sense that Calvin was the most strict of them.

Yeah, because you couldn't dance.

It was forbidden to play cards.

No music, no mirrors, for example.

Why do you think people accepted it so readily, his way of being?

I think it's very important to see somebody living in the 16th century.

You cannot see how you would react and think.

Whether or not you went to heaven or to hell was as important to you as whether you had bread on your table?

That's it.

Rosendo: Geneva has been an international town since Roman times.

Site of ancient markets, the Place du Bourge-de-Four is still a gathering place, while the Place du Molard and tower harken back to days when a wall protected Geneva.

It was natural, therefore, that Calvin's Geneva would become one of the stalwarts of the Reformation and helped spread its teaching beyond Germany and Switzerland.

Since access to the word of God was a primary tenet of the Reformation, College Calvin is an important stop on our Reformation tour of Geneva.

Established by Calvin in 1559, boys from all over Europe came here to get an education and to study his teachings and then subsequently return to their country, where they spread the word.

Calvin's intention in beginning the college is best illustrated by his proclamation to his followers-- "you send me wood, and I'll send you back arrows."

At the International Museum of the Reformation, in the building where the ideas were first adopted by Geneva in 1536, the Reformation's worldwide influences and manifestations are tracked.

The heart of the museum is the Bible room, where the languages of this bestseller's many translations are honored.

The Reformation Wall honors the 4 giants of the Reformation here in Geneva, and figures of the Protestant Reformation worldwide, such as Zwingli of Zurich, Luther of Germany, the pilgrim Roger Williams, and the Englishman Oliver Cromwell.

Built in 1917 in front of the ramparts of the city, it honors the 400th anniversary of John Calvin, and inscriptions on the wall include the slogan of the Protestant Reformation, Post tenebras lux, "out of darkness, light."

Geneva's reputation as a city of refuge dates back to the Reformation.

In France, the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had promised religious freedom, caused thousands of Calvin's followers, called Huguenots, to flee to Geneva.

It's one reason why French is the main language of the canton today.

Geneva maintains its humanistic reputation as host to the European headquarters of the United Nations, the Red Cross, and the World Health Organization.

No stop on the Reformation trail surpasses Wittenberg, Germany.

It's so synonymous with Luther that its official name is Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

Here Luther was a monk, taught at the university, posted his 95 theses, got married, preached 2,000 sermons in the city church... and defied the Pope's edicts.

On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X issued a pronouncement called a papal bull, which, in large part, rejected Luther's 95 theses, characterized him as the destructive wild boar of the forest, and threatened to excommunicate him if he didn't recant within 60 days.

Well, Luther refused.

So that on December the 10th, 1520, Luther and fellow reformer Melancthon invited university faculty and students to witness a bonfire of volumes of Catholic law and writing at this spot outside the city's east gate.

Luther personally fed the papal bull into the fire.

In 1830, this oak tree replaced the original tree that was planted at this spot where the alleged burnings took place.

[Chorus singing] Of all the things the Reformation was against, it was for clerical marriage.

"There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage," wrote Luther.

Each June in Wittenberg, the wedding of Luther, the excommunicated monk, and Katharina Von Bora, the fugitive nun, is joyously celebrated.

[Chorus singing] [Instruments playing] Luther's "hochsancht," or wedding celebration, is only part of the Wittenberg festival.

This is much larger than I thought it was going to be.

The town is only 50,000 people, and there will be 100,000 people here this weekend.

And everybody is dressed for the occasion.

Button, button, who's got the button?

We've got the buttons.

You've got the button.

It's a very old tradition in Europe to wear a button as jewelry.

It's about 30,000 years old.

I've never seen anything like this at any of these kinds of fairs.

It's very beautiful here.

The whole city is full of people who are making a big festival.

[Drums and bagpipes playing] A lot of manufactured crafts here at the medieval market.

But what's really nice is there is a large assortment of people who are creating their own things.

So it really does have a taste of a medieval market.

[Drums and bagpipes playing] This is a... [Speaking German] It's a lute?

Yeah.

The finished one you can see there, and if you want, I play it after.

Oh, yeah.

That would be great.

[Lute playing] [Children cheering] Ah, that's beautiful.

How long have you been making lutes?

Man: Uh...12 years.

12 years.

Yeah.

I make also bagpipes, and I make medieval music since 35 years.

[Bagpipes playing] Ha ha ha!

Rosendo: So this is a sheath for a knife?

Man: Yes.

Now, that's a knife.

Tchoo!

Ha ha ha!

You guys look great.

What are you dressed as?

Thank you.

It's a 16th-century dress.

And your daughter?

She's one of the washerwomen.

Are you both going to be in the parade?

Yes, we do.

And it's getting bigger and bigger every year.

More schools are getting involved?

And kindergartens.

Keep the tradition going.

Yes, you're right.

[Drums and bagpipes playing] The sale of indulgences.

[Cheering] So if I buy this, sins are wiped out, are forgotten.

[Singing] Gluttony and drunkenness.

3 Euros.

All my sins gone?

Not all.

No, not all.

[Drums and bagpipes playing] On the double!

[Shouting] [Speaking German] [Applause] She's a little bit younger than you.

She is.

She's 16 years younger than me.

Oh, good man.

I got married at the age of 42, and she's 26.

Good man!

Where are you from?

California.

All right.

Welcome.

Well, thank you.

21 years later, after a life blessed with 6 children and thousands of students, Luther met his maker not in Wittenberg, but in his birth town of Eisleben.

As fate would have it, after preaching more than 30 years at Wittenberg's city church, Luther's final sermons would take place from this pulpit here in St. Andrew's Church.

In his last sermon, Luther attacked the pope, the rich, the powerful, and the royal.

From the very beginning, Luther believed in access to the Bible's teachings and God's grace for all.

And he stayed true to that creed through the very end.

While the life of the world's influential thinkers matters the most, we are always fascinated by their death.

Perhaps it has to do with the adage-- "We die as we have lived."

And in their end, we look for a clue to the true meaning of their life.

On February 18, 1546, Dr. Martin Luther died at the age of 62.

During his final lecture in Wittenberg, he told his students, "I am weak.

I cannot go on."

Still, he traveled to Eisleben to mediate a dispute and became ill.

He said, "I want to go home "and lie down in my coffin to sleep and give the worms a good fat doctor to eat."

On his deathbed, he was asked if he died firm in his beliefs and teachings, to which he replied, "Ja."

The last line of a note they found on his desk reads, "It is true.

We are all beggars before God."

Controversial always, Luther was no saint, and less so during his end-of-life rantings against Jews.

It is part of his legacy that, 400 years later, the Nazis would co-op his anti-Semitic writings to support the Holocaust.

While we consider this, we may also remember that his revolutionary spiritual ideas changed the world order and intellectually freed much of Europe.

Following the path of the Reformation is an enormous task.

It's a path that historians, scholars, and theologians have spent lifetimes traveling.

I can't begin to imagine that my two half-hour Germany-Switzerland Reformation travel shows have done more than just scratch the surface.

I can only hope that I have piqued your interest, fired your imagination, and inspired you to greater explorations.

Yet "Travelscope" is a show about people, and one thing is very clear-- the Reformation is a story of individuals who sought the freedom and power to express their beliefs and were willing to pay any price to gain it.

That part of the Reformation story is ageless.

As anthropologist Margaret Mead said, "Never believe that a few caring people "can't change the world, for, indeed, that's all who ever have."

Until next time, this is Joseph Rosendo reminding you of the words of Mark Twain-- "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Happy traveling.

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Rosendo: Now that we've followed the path of the Reformation together, learn more at Travelscope.net, where you can follow my worldwide adventures through my e-magazine, blog, podcast, and on Facebook.

Stay in touch.

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How much milk do we have here?

Woman: 200 liters.

[Loud creaking] Rosendo: What does the rennet do?

Woman: It makes the milk like a pudding.

Rosendo: Now, what's the difference between the mountain cheese and the Emmentaler cheese?

Emmentaler cheese has other kinds of bacterias inside, which make these holes.

In the United States, we call that Swiss cheese.

OK. Our Emmentaler is the Swiss cheese.

[Loud thunder] Rosendo: I guess when it rains, it pours in Wittenberg.

Luther would probably say that God is blessing his wedding with an abundance of water.

[Band playing] [Cheering]