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Here's a thought I've been pondering on. Is it possible that in fact Rome keeping the scripture from the people did contribute to the Protestant revolution in this way. By keeping the bible from the people through centuries of barbarism in the West, which the East didn't experience, the people and even the lower clergy forgot their proper role in the working of The Church.
Scripturally, Kolo, Christians are to keep other Christians accountable. There is a certain order to things. However, think upon what had been going on for a few centuries in Catholicism in terms of immoral Popes, the "babylonian captivity at Avignon", Simony, Pluralism, Indulgences,etc., The church hierarchy had basicically become secular and had ceded their spiritual authority though they tried to utilize it as overlords over all of Europe. Gotta king who is going to do something politically that you don't like, excommunicate him? Wanna fight a war? Well, as Pope you have all of the power and influence in the world to lean on the right people and send out people yourself in order to "getter done." Need money? Not hardly, you're the Pope! Spend spend spend as much as you want and on whatever you want. Then go through and collect from the peasants who are there to serve you. I would submit that at that time the "Church" at Rome had ceased being the church at all and the only holiness one found was in pockets and in spite of Roman emphasis of the day.

Enter Luther. Luther was a man who was raised to be an attorney, but in a fit of superstition and fear promised to be a priest if St. Anne would get him out of a thunderstorm. Once there, to his credit, he took his role seriously. Yet, the more he tried to be a churchman, the more aware he was of his own sinfulness. Who tells us we are sinners in need of change? Is it Satan? Would Satan have said, Luther, you're a sinner and you need to change. Or was it God? Well, in honesty, there was a bit of both working in Luther at the time. God was showing Luther his own sinfulness in comparison to God's holiness. Satan was then taking all of the rules and regulations and superstitions and hammering Luther with them. Luther did confession to the point that his confessor became a bit aggravated with him. He tried a bit of aesceticism. He wanted to be closer to God and free from his own sinfulness but the more he did the further away God felt from him. In his desire to be nearer to God, Satan was taking the impossibility of works reconciling man to God and putting a nice little twist on it that was beginning to make Luther resent God as an impossible task master. NOTHING in the Roman system led Luther to believe otherwise. It was only through his study of Scripture that he was freed.

Luther saw "The just shall live by faith." And the words were freedom. God was no longer an impossible task master but as Luther wrote:
I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

Christ desires unity in His church. But at what cost? Would you give up your beliefs in order to be unified with the Protestants? Would you drop your objections to Rome completely in order to be united with it and ignore the areas of difference? We saw earlier on where the church at that time, as far as hierarchy goes, could easily be described as satanic. A pope who not only had illegitimate kids and mistresses but supposedly had an orgy in the Vatican does not appear to be one who is operating in Christ's authority. The Shepherds of the church of Rome had become the evil Shepherds of Ezekiel 34. And God Himself raised up other Shepherds who took the authority for what they had to say strictly from the written record that God left in Scripture. Surely, Kolo, in comparison to what was, the Protestants should be seen as a vast improvement in terms of holiness and truth.

Does this mean that Luther and Calvin were perfect? Far from it. Both did some awful things. But, they were also men of their times and they didn't do anything that hadn't been done many times before in the name of Christendom. Just as when we die, none of us have reached the full santification that is entailed in being just like Christ without sin, doubt, etc., On earth, their sanctification was not fully complete either. Today, they are well aware of where they were in error as far as their treatment of their fellow man goes. There are also issues of doctrine that I believe both men erred on, but not of essential nature. I am closer to Calvin than Luther on the Lord's Supper for instance and would probably be found somewhere between Calvin and Zwingli. I believe that this is Scriptural. Other Christians disagree. For us, this is not an essential but a secondary doctrine. Important but not crucial.

society became feudal in the West, so did The Church there such that the people's role in The Church became like their role in society...serfs subject to the whim of their overlords.
This happened earlier than feudalism. It began happening in the 300s with Constantine. Whenever the church becomes synonymous with the state, there are going to be issues. It wasn't so much feudalism then, though organizationally it was to play a significant role, but rather power. Christendom, led by its Popes, kings, and princes conquered new territories and MADE THEM "Christian". My ancestor, Charlemagne was a big proponent of "Evangelism by the sword". Not one of Christianity's finer moments, but it is what it is.

Once the people did read the bible, that knowledge gave them power and that power, once unleashed lead to a true revolution.
Very very true.

The Church in the West, untethered from the restraining ecclesiology of the East, reacted rigidly as overlords are wont to do. By the time The Church realized the extent of the reforms necessary, a full blown "French Revolution" was underway and it was too late to stop it.
They couldn't have stopped it earlier. God had engineered it. He took what was a mess and salvaged it. Read Ezekiel 34. Shepherds who do not follow the Good Shepherd are not of God at all.

In the meantime, the reformers, having cut themselves off from The Church and its "oneness" and "apostolicity"
I would submit that they had returned to the apostolicity of the church and the oneness. Just because there are many different brands of Protestantism doesn't mean on essentials we are not largely unified. Second, genealogies mean nothing if the cores have been stripped from them. I could say, I am a descendant of the kings of France and therefore am entitled to rule over the French. But though I am a biological descendant, there is nothing in me that equips me or authorizes me to lead as I am very much "not French." The Popes may be able to trace a genealogy of sorts back to the days of the early church. I would submit that their genealogy however is a broken mess. It is not an unbroken succession. Would one really consider Pope Benedict VIII who bought the papacy, Pope Benedict IX who had people murdered, Pope Boniface VIII who ordered the slaughters of every man woman and child in a certain town as did Pope Clement VI, the Borgia Pope who we have already mentioned, and many others descendants of Peter?

Just as not all are called Israel who are physically descended from Abraham, so not all are called Apostolic that are linearly descended (and most arguably) from the Apostles. A Spiritual descendency is what is important here. Our beliefs should find root in what the Apostles learned and taught in Scripture. So rather than being cut off from Apostolicity, I submit the reformers regained it.

Finally, why are there so many sects of Protestantism compared to very few varieties for Orthodoxy and Catholicism? Well, first, the shepherds over the church had done a horrific job of being shepherds. The needs of the flock were not being met spiritually, physically, or in any other way. Rather, the people were being exploited. I believe God allowed the fragmentation (while preserving unity on essentials) so that no one man or group of men could be overlord over the whole body. Second, by allowing some fragmentation it was as Iron sharpening Iron. Some Protestant sects have unfortunately become heterodox. But if you do a search on the net for statements of faith on the major denominations you will find considerable and substantial unity. We may not have a Pope or Bishop over the whole group of us, but such does not imply that we are wandering sheep without a Shepherd. We are Shepherded by Christ and the Word of God. When groups of us do wander, it is usually because we have ceded the Shepherding over to some philosophy of man and away from Scripture. Some Protestant denominations are dying because they have embraced man's methods and shunned the Word of God. They want a feel-good "fun" religion rather than one that, yes can be quite fun but can also be quite painful at times as one confronts sin in one's life.

Oh well, you asked for my input. There it is. I'm off to do my Saturday things now. Later. B.

"I would submit that at that time the "Church" at Rome had ceased being the church at all and the only holiness one found was in pockets and in spite of Roman emphasis of the day."

I would say not the Latin church per se, but the men who had arrogated all authority in that church to themselves to the exclusion of the lower clergy and the laity.

"NOTHING in the Roman system led Luther to believe otherwise. It was only through his study of Scripture that he was freed."

This is close to spot on. The key words are "Roman system". Look at what had become of a church which had been the bulwark of Orthodoxy through many, many centuries during which time the predecessors of my bishops were wandering off into heresy only, and luckily, to be pulled back by the influence of the lower clergy, the people...and Rome. But I will tell you, B, even from an Orthodox pov, there was great holiness in the Latin church of those times in its faithfulness to the sacraments.

"Would you give up your beliefs in order to be unified with the Protestants? Would you drop your objections to Rome completely in order to be united with it and ignore the areas of difference?"

No, of course not. But I cannot stress enough that our differences with Rome are primarily ecclesiological. The theological differences today are limited. Our differences with protestantism are primarily and extensively theological. I still maintain that it was a fundamental ecclesiological problem which lead to the Protestant Reformation; the theology came later (though not much later).

"Surely, Kolo, in comparison to what was, the Protestants should be seen as a vast improvement in terms of holiness and truth."

In terms of what, B? Certainly not the sacramental life of the Western church. In terms of the personal piety of the average Western European Christian? I shouldn't think so. That was strong before and after the Reformation on both sides. The lower clergy? I don't know. One reads all sorts of horror stories about evil priests and ministers from that erea. Of the respective hierarchies? Hard to say. There was a lot of blood spilled on both sides, urged on by the leaders.

"This happened earlier than feudalism. It began happening in the 300s with Constantine. Whenever the church becomes synonymous with the state, there are going to be issues. It wasn't so much feudalism then, though organizationally it was to play a significant role, but rather power. Christendom, led by its Popes, kings, and princes conquered new territories and MADE THEM "Christian". My ancestor, Charlemagne was a big proponent of "Evangelism by the sword". Not one of Christianity's finer moments, but it is what it is."

Western Christendom, B, Western Christendom! The Church in the East, though until the Ottoman conquest a state church, never indulged in what went on in the West nor was it ever lead around by the Pope. I know that many Protestants look to Constantine as the founder of the Roman style church you guys have lived with, but that simply isn't true. What he influenced, to an extent, was the pre-schism Church and what is now the Orthodox Church. Indeed his influence wasn't that great at all. He was in fact theologically sympathetic to Arianism, yet we all know what the Council he called did with that heresy. What you see in the West is magnitudes more a product of Charlemagne than Constantine.

"They couldn't have stopped it earlier. God had engineered it. He took what was a mess and salvaged it."

Interesting, then, that in the far more educated and cosmopolitan East, no Reformation ever took place. And when I say educated, I mean in all areas including theology. There's a marvelous story told by one of the Fathers, +John Chrysostomos perhaps, wherein he complains that he had spent the day accomplishing only two of his errands because the shoe maker insisted on debating the procession of the Holy Spirit and the baker the two natures of Christ!

"Oh well, you asked for my input. There it is."

And I very much appreciate your comments and insight. That's why I asked for it, B! :)