Saturday, February 11, 2017

The Reformation At 500

2017 is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. This is the splitting away of the Protestants from the Catholic Church. The Reformation utterly changed the world. It was not the first split, the Eastern Orthodox Church had split nearly five hundred years before.

The Catholic Church was transformed by the Reformation, almost as much as the Protestant Churches. After the Protestants had split, the Catholic Church launched it's own Counter-Reformation in response, and so much of what the Catholic Church is today is not from the original church but the result of reforms during the Counter-Reformation.

You may notice that churches and cathedrals in Britain are often referred to as abbeys, but that term is not seen in North America. The reason is that Catholic monasteries were closed by Henry VIII (The Eighth), following the Reformation, and the abbey churches were converted to use as ordinary churches or cathedrals.

But many former monasteries, particularly away from towns or cities, were simply abandoned. All around the country are ruins that are reminders of the Reformation.

The following scenes are of Tintern Abbey, on the Welsh side of the Wye River. It was a thriving monastery, with a cathedral-sized abbey church, for about four hundred years. Then, closed and abandoned after the Reformation, it has been falling into ruin for nearly five hundred years. It has been the subject of paintings, but no effort has been made to rebuild it.

I walked around here when I was a teenager, it is like surviving a nuclear holocaust and emerging from the shelter to see what is left of civilization.

Remember that, if there is a compass showing on the right of the image, it is a 360 degree view, if not then it is a still photo. You can get more viewing space by clicking the arrow to "Hide Imagery". You can pull the screen up or down or around with the mouse:

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6973323,-2.6768199,3a,75y,193h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-ZRQMbWayCc8%2FV8Xlc2DDJVI%2FAAAAAAAAsOA%2FWyuciahXh-gD6CIIrsD0ONZ3Z2kCKMcAwCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-ZRQMbWayCc8%2FV8Xlc2DDJVI%2FAAAAAAAAsOA%2FWyuciahXh-gD6CIIrsD0ONZ3Z2kCKMcAwCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya209.31277-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i10240!8i5120

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