The Great Schism of the West: The Reformation as New Religions

The Magisterial Reformation—Three New Popes of Three New Religions?

This article is Part 5 in a series. Be sure to start with Part 1!

This article is Part 5 in a series. After Part 1, be sure to read Part 2!

This article is Part 5 in a series. After Part 2, be sure to read Part 3!

This article is Part 5 in a series. After Part 3, be sure to read Part 4!

Author's Note: What follows is part of a personal hypothesis. While I am a devoted member of the Orthodox Church, this work does not reflect the official position of the Orthodox Church nor does it speak on behalf of it.

Rather, it represents my own synthesis and reflection on the long historical arc of spiritual warfare I believe has been waged against God, Christ, and His Church from the moment of the Incarnation until now. Ideas and concepts articulated within this article come from my own understanding of early church and reformation history, orthodox and roman catholic podcasts and some evangelical sources. (Where these types of views tend to be the most prevalent.)

After the Paywall

The Protestant Reformation, often presented as a righteous effort to purify the Church, was, in fact, a catastrophic schism that played directly into the hands of the Enemy. I argue that the Reformation was not a reform at all, but a strategic campaign of internal division disguised as a noble cause.

It began with real corruption in the Western Church, but instead of inspiring a true, internal correction, it birthed a new and dangerous principle: when the Church errs, break away and start over. This wasn't merely a protest; it was a redefinition of Christianity itself.

Read on to discover how three men—Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin—each with their own personal flaws and powerful egos, led movements that didn't reform the Church but created new, human-centric religious traditions. You'll learn:

• How Martin Luther's "discovery" of sola fide (faith alone) may have been a false spiritual illumination that led to an authoritarian movement named after him.

• How Ulrich Zwingli and his followers, known as Anabaptists, established a tyrannical religious regime in Zurich where dissent was met with persecution and even death.

• How John Calvin's theology of predestination and total depravity, which I argue is fundamentally heretical, laid the foundation for a new, unforgiving theocracy in Geneva.

The article draws a startling parallel between the Ottoman Empire's secular, political threat to Christianity and the internal ideological threat posed by the Reformation. It argues that just as the Ottoman Empire was a fruit of a "demonic" ideology, so too was Protestantism. This historical review reveals how the fragmentation of Christianity left the West vulnerable to secularism, relativism, and the rise of other anti-Christian movements. We conclude with the provocative notion that if the founder of your church isn't Jesus or one of the apostles, you're not in the true Church at all.

This is a story of divine spiritual warfare where the greatest deception came from within through the harnessing and corruption of men’s Egos. The full article connects the theological shifts of the 16th century to the nihilism and secular chaos of the modern world, offering a challenging perspective on the spiritual lineage of Western Christianity.