Gutenberg, the Printing Press, and the Wildfire of Protestantism

Who was responsible for the 16th century Protestant Reformation? Johannes Gutenberg was. The inventor of the movable type printing press, died February 3, 1468. Gutenberg's 1450 invention was a powerful factor in the spread of the Reformation, making the Bible and the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers much more widely available. This, added to the cry for reform by John Wycliff and the Lollards in the previous century, the translation of the Bible into German (1522) and English (1526), the rise of Humanism (encouraging the study of the original original source: the Bible), and the widespread corruption in the Medieval Catholic Church, all made the 16th century Reformation inevitable and an unstoppable force for recovering the catholic and apostolic faith.