Leo wrote a papal bull threatening Luther with excommunication. He also sent church officials to Germany to negotiate the priest’s arrest and imprisonment. These officials, however, came back with shocking news that altered everything: in the few short years since the publication of The Ninety-five Theses, Martin Luther, an unknown German priest, had somehow become a sensation, a celebrity, a beloved figure throughout the country. Everywhere the pope’s officials went, they were heckled, even threatened with stoning. Shop windows in almost every German town contained paintings of Luther with a
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