Reformation Day

SKtheChog | October 31, 2025

Martin Luther is widely credited with starting the Protestant Reformation, but men like John Wycliffe and John Hus helped lay the groundwork. John Wycliffe, the Morning Star of the Reformation, was an English Reformer who, at risk of his own life, led the effort to translate the Bible into English. Wycliffe advocated for the authority of Scripture and argued against the corruption and false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. 

John Hus of Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) read the writings of Hus and became a Reformer in his own right. Hus also called out corruption in the Catholic Church and became convinced that men should obey Rome only to the extent that its teaching aligned with Scripture - citing Acts 5:29, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Hus was excommunicated multiple times and in 1415 he was burned at the stake as a heretic. The last words of Hus, whose last name means goose, were recorded as:

“You are going to burn a goose, but in one hundred years you will have a swan which you can neither roast nor boil.”

Interestingly, Luther made his monastic vows and said his first Mass at an Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt which held the tomb of Johann von Seckendorf, an Official and Lawyer on the Council of Constance (1415-1418) - the Council that condemned John Hus and sentenced him to execution. That same Council also pronounced John Wycliffe a heretic (though he died in 1384), ordering his writings destroyed and his body to be exhumed and burned. (The order was not actually carried out until 1528, 44 years after Wycliffe's death.)

In Eisleben the house where Luther was raised is a museum today. In the room where Luther is thought to have been born there is this statue of a swan. Luther was aware of Hus’ prophetic final words.