Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 2, 2008

The Scottish Reformation was Scotland's formal break with the papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation; and in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the re-establishment of the church along Reformed lines, and politically in the triumph of English influence over that of France.

The Reformation Parliament of 1560, which repudiated the pope's authority, forbade the celebration of the mass and approved a Protestant Confession of Faith, was made possible by a revolution against French hegemony under the regime of the regent Mary of Guise, who had governed Scotland in the name of her absent daughter Mary Queen of Scots (then also Queen of France).

The Scottish Reformation decisively shaped the Church of Scotland and, through it, all other Presbyterian churches worldwide. From the fifteenth century, Renaissance humanism had already encouraged critical theological reflection and calls for ecclesiastical renewal in Scotland. From 1517, Martin Luther's doctrinal ideas were influencing Scots. As early as 1525 Parliament thought it necessary to forbid the importation of Lutheran books, and to suppress 'his heresies or opinions' throughout the realm.