I just found out today, Halloween, is also Reformation Day. This day Protestants celebrate Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses on the doors of the Church. Apparently, the Halloween connection isn't unintentional, All Saints Day being a day when pilgrims would come to Church to see the relics of saints.
So, the Reformation began as a movement to resist the Catholic Church's supposed unwarranted additions to the Faith (indulgences, purgatory, etc). I guess you could say, they were trying to return to "orthodoxy," and even did a good job of it for a while. But, from what I can see, when you take ideas out of their tradition, those ideas don't make so much sense over time. That's why the Lutheran Church and the rest of mainline Protestantism is a shell of its former self.
Incidentally, you'd think it would make sense if the Lutherans would have contacted the Orthodox Churches; schismatics way before Luther. Well they did, and were roundly rebuked by the Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople.
Enjoy the polka
-Steve K.
