Answer:
The schism between the Roman Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity was caused because reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin challenged the Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences and papal corruption, leading to the Protestant Reformation.
Explanation:
In the sixteenth century there was a great crisis in the Catholic Church in Western Europe due to numerous accusations of ecclesiastical corruption and lack of religious piety. It was the sale of indulgences to finance the construction of the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, which started the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther and John Calvin, which would eventually cause Western Christianity to be divided in two, one led by the Catholic Church, which after the Council of Trent claimed to be the true heir of Western Christendom, expelling any dissent and subjecting itself to the jurisdiction of the Pope; and another half that founded several ecclesial communities of their own, generally of a national character, for the most part, rejecting the medieval Christian heritage and seek the restoration of an idealized primitive Christianity. This resulted in Europe being divided between a series of countries that recognized the Pope as the highest pontiff of the Catholic Church, and the countries that rejected Catholic theology and the authority of Rome and that received the common name of Protestants. This division provoked a series of religious wars in Europe.
