Who is john wycliffe and what did he do

The writings of John Hus, the Bohemian reformer, which got him condemned and burned at the stake, depended heavily on translations and adaptations of tracts, treatises, and sermons by John Wycliffe. The Wycliffe translation of the Bible was made from a Latin language, hand-written manuscript of a translation a thousand years old and before any verse numbers had been assigned.

With all of his questioning of the doctrines of the church and his criticism of the corruption of the clergy, John Wycliffe was never excommunicated nor did he ever leave the church, but, in fact, he suffered his fatal stroke while at Mass.

At the Diet of Worms in , Martin Luther was accused of renewing the errors of Wycliffe and Hus by making the Scriptures his final authority. Click here for reprint information on Christian History. Sections Home. Bible Coronavirus Prayer. Subscribe Member Benefits Give a Gift. Subscribers receive full access to the archives. At a subsequent hearing before the archbishop at Lambeth Palace, Wycliffe replied, "I am ready to defend my convictions even unto death….

I have followed the Sacred Scriptures and the holy doctors. This didn't sit well with Rome, but because of Wycliffe's popularity in England and a subsequent split in the papacy the Great Schism of , when rival popes were elected , Wycliffe was put under "house arrest" and left to pastor his Lutterworth parish. He deepened his study of Scripture and wrote more about his conflicts with official church teaching.

He wrote against the doctrine of transubstantiation: "The bread while becoming by virtue of Christ's words the body of Christ does not cease to be bread. He challenged indulgences: "It is plain to me that our prelates in granting indulgences do commonly blaspheme the wisdom of God.

He repudiated the confessional: "Private confession … was not ordered by Christ and was not used by the apostles. He reiterated the biblical teaching on faith: "Trust wholly in Christ; rely altogether on his sufferings; beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness.

Believing that every Christian should have access to Scripture only Latin translations were available at the time , he began translating the Bible into English, with the help of his good friend John Purvey. The church bitterly opposed it : "By this translation, the Scriptures have become vulgar, and they are more available to lay, and even to women who can read, than they were to learned scholars, who have a high intelligence. So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine.

Wycliffe replied, "Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's apostles. Wycliffe died before the translation was complete and before authorities could convict him of heresy ; his friend Purvey is considered responsible for the version of the "Wycliffe" Bible we have today. Though Wycliffe's followers who came to be called "Lollards"—referring to the region of their original strength were driven underground, they remained a persistent irritant to English Catholic authorities until the English Reformation made their views the norm.

Sections Home. The Church Council of Constance assembled in under pressure from the Holy Roman Emperor to resolve the confusing and embarrassing situation in which the Church found itself with three popes all at once. There had been two rival popes since and three since The Council claimed direct authority from Christ and consequently superior power over any pope and succeeded in resolving the papal situation by the time it finished its labours in Meanwhile, in , the Council had considered, and condemned as heretical, the teachings of the Prague priest Jan Hus and he was burned at the stake in Constance.

It also condemned an Englishman whose writings had influenced Hus. Fortunately for the Englishman, he was dead. Thought to have been born in the mids, John Wycliffe or Wyclif there are several other spellings was a Yorkshireman, who studied at Oxford University, became a fellow of Merton College and went on to win a brilliant reputation as an expert on theology.

Ordained priest in , he was vicar of Fylingham, a Lincolnshire village, from the s, but spent most of his time at Oxford. In he was made rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. By that time Wycliffe had developed startlingly unorthodox opinions, which were condemned by Pope Gregory VII in He had come to regard the scriptures as the only reliable guide to the truth about God and maintained that all Christians should rely on the Bible rather than the unreliable and frequently self-serving teachings of popes and clerics.

He disapproved of clerical celibacy, pilgrimages, the selling of indulgences and praying to saints. He thought the monasteries were corrupt and the immorality with which many clerics often behaved invalidated the sacraments they conducted.