Fair enough. I guess the same can be said for the Protestant side's knowledge of the Orthodox Church.
Please do not make the mistake of glossing over the sins of your church which helped produce a Luther
MY Church? In case you didn't see my tagline, I am Eastern Orthodox. I suppose you just proved my point above. I assure you that MY Church had done nothing to produce a Luther.
Luther set out to resist human failings and corruption among the clergy and ended up changing the theology to fit his lifestyle! It wasn't about human corruption that he was rebelling, but against the the 1,5900 years of the Apostolic and catholic faith of the Church.
For sure, he did not erradicate corruption, but not to worry, he was more interested in creating a church, if one can call it that, where committing adultery and muder a hundred times a day is okay as long as you love God.
Next thing you will tell me he didn't say that either.
Again, you can't take Luther's "sin boldly" comment out of the context of Luther's thoughts. He said "sin boldly, but believe MORE boldly."
And you see nothing wrong with that? I think that "Believe more bodly so that you may sin less (boldly)" would be the Christian thing to say.
1,5900 =1,500
I simply forgot you were orthodox. I would have known the difference.
I readily admit I know far less about the Orthodox than I do Catholics. That's why I'm asking questions.
Luther's theology changed because of what he saw in Scripture. Luther had no desire initially to break with the church, but the more resistance he met, the more he realized that the break was inevitable. He was also a typical German male of the time and could come off rather brute. Nevertheless, when you go to present your case and have to been hidden away less the church people kill you, chances are, it is time to split from that church.
Luther's theology changed when translating Paul. He realized what the Bible actually said about grace. He also had a nasty trip to Rome where he found brothels just for the churchmen. Please don't believe that church corruption wasn't a large part of what caused him to leave.
His desire was to reform. They wouldn't reform. It would take Loyola later on to address some of these issues. But Rome in 1500 was apostate.