Читать книгу Essentials in Church History - Joseph Fielding Smith - Страница 49

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All these things played an important part in the establishment of individual and religious freedom. The most important agency of all in this great work was doubtless the so-called “Reformation,” which was in fact a revolution from the bondage of the church of Rome. Great men of intellectual power began to undermine the thraldom of the religious world. This rebellion against the dominion of Rome was almost simultaneous in the various lands. In England, Scandinavia, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, many “reformers” arose near the end of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth century. They were of varying degrees of enthusiasm and opposition to the teachings of that time. In the beginning their only desire was to correct evils within the Catholic Church, but failing in this many of them openly rebelled and set up independent churches of their own.