Exsurge Domine

Title page of first printed edition of Exsurge Domine

Exsurge Domine (Latin for 'Arise, O Lord') is a papal bull promulgated on 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X. It was written in response to the teachings of Martin Luther which opposed the views of the Catholic Church. The bull censured forty-one propositions abstracted from Luther's writings, and threatened him with excommunication unless he recanted within a sixty-day period commencing upon the publication of the bull in Saxony and its neighboring regions.

Luther refused to recant and responded instead by composing polemical tracts rebuking the papacy, and by publicly burning a copy of the bull on 10 December 1520. As a result, Luther was excommunicated in 1521.


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