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“Not according to Luther, Zwingli and Calvin — are you surprised? Read on!”

Keep in mind I’m not a Catholic, so the beliefs of others, from my perspective, must stand corrected by the scripture. But, for the record, Luther started off with delusions of Mary, but finished with something quite different.

Luther on the Immaculate conception:

“Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are…For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person.” (Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 3, ed. John Nicholas Lenker. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996, p. 291.)

Luther downplaying the importance of Mary’s perpetual virginity:

“Scripture does not quibble or speak about the virginity of Mary after the birth of Christ, a matter about which the hypocrites are greatly concerned, as if it were something of the utmost importance on which our whole salvation depended. Actually, we should be satisfied simply to hold that she remained a virgin after the birth of Christ because Scripture does not state or indicate that she later lost her virginity... But the Scripture stops with this, that she was a virgin before and at the birth of Christ; for up to this point God had need of her virginity in order to give us the promised blessed seed without sin.” (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 45: 205-206.)

Luther condemning the extolling of Mary’s perpetual virginity instead of Christ:

“Now just take a look at the perverse lauders of the mother of God. If you ask them why they hold so strongly to the virginity of Mary, they truly could not say. These stupid idolators do nothing more than to glorify only the mother of God; they extol her for her virginity and practically make a false deity of her. But Scripture does not praise this virginity at all for the sake of the mother; neither was she saved on account of her virginity. Indeed, cursed be this and every other virginity if it exists for its own sake, and accomplishes nothing better than its own profit and praise.

The Spirit extols this virginity, however, because it was needful for the conceiving and bearing of this blessed fruit. Because of the corruption of our flesh, such blessed fruit could not come, except through a virgin. Thus this tender virginity existed in the service of others to the glory of God, not to its own glory” (Ibid., 45:204).

Luther on prayer to the saints in 1522 (he has other quotes, before this, which contradict his later ideas):

“I beseech in Christ that your preachers forbear entering upon questions concerning the saints in heaven and the deceased, and I ask you to turn the attention of people away from these matters in view of the fact…that they are neither profitable nor necessary for salvation. This is also reason why God decided not to let us know anything about His dealings with the deceased. Surely he is not committing a sin who does not call upon any saint but only clings firmly to the one mediator, Jesus Christ.” (Martin Luther, “Letter to Erfurt evangelists July 10, 1522,” What Luther Says, Vol. 1, 1253.)

Luther accuses the RCC of Saint worship:

“No one can deny that by such saint worship we have now come to the point where we have actually made utter idols of the Mother of God and the saints, and that because of the service we have rendered and the works we have performed in their honor we have sought comfort more with them than with Christ Himself. Thereby faith in Christ has been destroyed.” (Martin Luther, D.Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke 11:415 quoted in MartinLuther, What Luther Says, Vol. III, ed. Ewald Martin Plass (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), 1254.)

Luther redefines the Hail Mary, according to James Swan:

“But what does Luther mean by “through Mary”? Luther does not mean, “by praying to her,” but rather by thanking God for creating such a noble, blessed, person. The words of the Hail Mary are “neither a prayer nor an invocation” and “are not concerned with prayer but purely with giving praise and honor” to God.[55] The man who only a few years earlier called upon her, concluded that “those who bless her with many rosaries and constantly mouth the Hail Mary… speak evil against Christ’s word and faith in the worst way.”[56] Their prayers to her are an evil deed against both her and her son. With this popular prayer, Luther reinterpreted it for his readers, again shifting the emphasis of praise to Mary to veneration of God alone.”

http://tquid.sharpens.org/luther_mary1.htm#I