Did the Reformation End in 1999?

Oct. 31 is All Hallows Eve in the Catholic Church. It is also Reformation Day for Protestants. On that day in 1517, according to tradition, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. The Reformation followed, and a great rupture ripped apart Western Christianity. 

So did the Reformation end 25 years ago?

Though the splintering of Western Christian continues, many (usually Catholic) ecumenical commentators argue that the Reformation did end, in a sense, when the main theological reason was resolved Oct. 31, 1999 — the day the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation signed the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.”