Who posted the 95 Theses in 1517 to protest indulgences?

• A. Desiderius Erasmus
• B. Martin Luther
• C. John Calvin
• D. Thomas Aquinas

Answer: (B)

Martin Luther, a German monk and professor of theology, posted the 95 Theses in 1517 as a challenge to the sale of indulgences and a call for debate about church practices. This act argued that forgiveness comes through faith rather than purchase, and it questioned the authority of the pope and church tradition. The Theses spread quickly with the aid of printing and sparked the Protestant Reformation, reshaping religious, political, and cultural life in Europe.

Erasmus was a humanist scholar who criticized abuses within the church but remained within Catholicism; Calvin was a later reformer who developed his own tradition in Geneva; Aquinas was a medieval theologian who lived long before Luther.