Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses called for religious reform and unintentionally sparked a powder keg that led to the Protestant Reformation, the sixteenth-century movement that rejected many of the teachings of Catholicism. Out of the Reformation sprang numerous Protestant denominations, including the Lutheran Church. According to legend, on October 31, 1517, Luther, a Catholic monk of the Augustinian order serving in Wittenberg, Germany, nailed a document containing ninety-five theses (points for discussion and debate) to the door of a chapel in Wittenberg. Luther’s motive for this act was to provoke debate about what he regarded as errors in church teachings and practices and to correct abuses in the Catholic Church, particularly the practice of selling indulgences. The issues that Luther raised generated a much wider debate, which in time split Western Christianity. The immediate outcome of that split was to be Lutheranism, a form of Protestant Christianity that enlisted millions of people with its appeal to freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.