Prologue

Abstract

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus — ‘Outside of the Church there is no salvation’ — was a position that the Catholic Church had held for nearly 750 years. In AD 1208 and again in AD 1215, Pope Innocent III had officially declared this extreme exclusivist position of the Catholic Church. This declaration came in the wake of conflicts and reconciliation with Waldensians, included also in the Fourth Lateran Council. Almost three hundred years later a protest against some teachings and many practices of the Catholic Church led by Martin Luther made the situation even worse. The Catholic Church took a strident stand against Luther’s protest by excommunicating him and his followers from the membership of the Church. This brought about the second major break between the Catholic Church and those who challenged its official teachings, and in its wake there were further divisions. With it started also bickering and infighting among Christian churches which was to last for the next four hundred years. The Protestants’ several allegations against the Catholic Church included the claim that it had lost its true character and had wandered far away from the original plans of its founder, Jesus Christ. Both the Catholics and the Protestants flung various allegations at each other for four centuries.