🇨🇱 Chile, Germany, Slovenia
Reformation Day is a Protestant Christian holiday celebrated on October 31 to remember the start of the Reformation. It looks back to 1517, when Martin Luther sent his Ninety-five Theses to church authorities in Germany. It is a public holiday in Chile, Slovenia and parts of Germany.
Reformation Day is marked chiefly with church services, especially in Lutheran and Reformed congregations, and ecumenical events that Catholic representatives often attend. It is a legal holiday in Chile, in Slovenia and in some German states. In the United States, many churches move the observance to Reformation Sunday, on or before October 31. In Northern Ireland, the Orange Order holds Reformation Day parades, with Belfast districts and marching bands meeting at St Anne's Cathedral for a church service.
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther wrote to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz protesting the sale of indulgences, enclosing the Ninety-five Theses. Philip Melanchthon later said Luther also nailed them to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, though that detail is not confirmed. Luther saw his text as a scholarly objection, not a break with the church, yet it set off the movement that reshaped European Christianity. The date became a symbol of conscience and reform, remembered by Protestants as the moment a debate over church practice grew into the Reformation.
Reformation Day shares its date with All Hallows' Eve, the evening before All Saints' Day, and Luther's church in Wittenberg bore the name All Saints'. Over the centuries anniversaries took on different tones: the 1817 celebration, for instance, was shaped by the Napoleonic era and cast Luther as a German national hero. By contrast, recent commemorations have stressed ecumenical cooperation.
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