On this date (Dec 10) in 1520, Martin Luther burned his copy of the Exsurge Domine outside the Elster Gate in Wittenberg – a monumental moment in the Protestant Reformation.
Before you say “Huh?”, the Exsurge Domine was a papal bull – a letter of decree or declaration or charter from the pope. It was issued by Pope Leo X on June 15, 1520, as an official Vatican response to Luther’s 95 Theses and other views and writings that pointed out big problems with the papacy.
In this decree, the pope demanded that Luther retract 41 “errors” in his writings, teachings, and sayings. The time he was given to make these retractions expired on December 10, which was the day that he burned his copy of the bull, plus some other volumes of Canon law.
Since Luther didn’t go along to get along, the pope issued another bull, Decet Romanum Pontificem, on January 3, 1521, which excommunicated Martin Luther.
Borrowing the words of another rebel from ‘long ago’, Luther is rumored to have said “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”
Of course, I’m the one who started this rumor, so it’s probably not true… but hey, now it’s on the Internet, and you know what they say!