Generally speaking, the Protestant Reformation, with its politically expansionist as well as its religiously transformative tones, appealed to segments of society who were either socially disadvantaged and/or desirous of greater social and economic mobility. Village residents and the peasantry, as the most impoverished group, were naturally drawn to the Reformation’s urgings, as were other individuals who had found themselves targeted by the state (such as political dissidents or residents who were under the control of an autocratic local ruler). The Reformation also received a great deal of support from guild members, particularly those who had experienced some financial gains and wanted this to ensure that this personal growth would continue. For the most part, these conditions meant that groups such as the aristocracy and the wealthy business class were largely immune to the Reformation’s charms, as they were already in an advantageous position, both financially and socially, and therefore regarded the notion of any sort of change as a potential threat to their prosperity.

In the years from the thirteenth into the fifteenth centuries, Western Europe saw the localized and/or regional rise of many lay religious movements. These developments were entirely conceived, implemented, and managed by secular individuals and were especially common in urban areas, where access to multiple sources of information (helped along by the printing press and expanding trade routes) encouraged free-thinking and experimentation. Several of these groups amassed rather substantially-sized followings – the Hussites, Waldensians, Beguines, and Lollards, for example. While of course these groups were all quite different, it is true that a definite majority shared a common central goal – they desired to return to what they saw as the simple religious practices put in place by Jesus and his original apostles. These individuals regarded the Catholic Church as a far too doctrinally and practically complex realm, one in which ritual outweighed belief. To solve this problem, many believed that the only true solution was a return to a more individualized, ascetic religious experience, one devoid of all the material trappings of Catholicism. Especially enshrined by such movements was the notion of equal and reciprocal exchange amongst religious leaders and the lay population, so that each church member, regardless of their official clerical or social status, was able to have their say and direct their own religious practices.

As perhaps the most important – and certainly one of the most outspoken - figures in the entirety of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther differed quite sharply from established Catholic Church teachings in a great many areas. A man of deep passions, Luther boldly criticized Church policies and doctrine at every turn, both verbally and in print. He attacked the Church most frequently over the issue of salvation, a doctrinal matter which both he and the Church viewed as being of the utmost importance. Luther was sharply critical over the Church’s definition of salvation as a two-part concept – one half bestowed by God and the other earned through good works (such as charity work) during a person’s time on Earth. According to Luther, this was a pernicious misinterpretation on the Church’s part, one that encouraged Catholics to engage in good works as a rote obligation, done out of duty rather than care and compassion for their fellow man. Such an attitude, Luther argued was not conducive to salvation, or indeed true Christianity, at all. Rather, Luther described salvation as an entirely God-given gift, which couldn’t be “bought” through contractual acts of good deeds.

Soon after breaking out in Germany, the Protestant Reformation began to spill over into Switzerland. With its independent and fiercely individualistic cantons (aka states), a track record of small-scale religious reform movements, and a growing tide of national sentiment, Switzerland enjoyed some of the same key conditions which had helped the Reformation take hold in Germany. Just as Germanic Protestantism operated largely under the leadership of Martin Luther, many Swiss Protestants found their ideal teacher in Ulrich Zwingli, a highly educated devotee of the humanist theologian Erasmus. Zwingli was just as intense, uncompromising, and outspoken as his Germanic counterpart and his devotees followed his example. Before too long, many of the Swiss cantons declared their Protestant allegiance, but the region unfortunately was not able to institute lasting compromises between its new Protestant and established Catholic populations. Before too long, these tensions would boil over into two bloody civil wars – first in 1529 and again in 1531. It was during this last conflict that Zwingli was killed in battle.

Over the course of the late sixteenth century, a new Protestant sect began to displace Lutheranism as the dominant religious movement across Western Europe. Known as Calvinism, this Protestant sect took its name from its vastly influential leader, John Calvin. Unlike Martin Luther, John Calvin was openly political in his aims – he spoke out quite often of his desire to marry religious change with sociopolitical reform. Calvin put his philosophy to the ultimate test in the city of Geneva, when the city’s leaders personally offered to appoint Calvin as one of the city’s top administrators. Before long, Calvin had won nearly the entire populace of Geneva, high and low ranking alike, to his side and together they shaped the social patterns and political policies of the city after Calvinist doctrine.

Calvinism, much like Lutheranism and the other sectors of Protestantism which developed alongside them, attracted its fair share of controversy. Yet one of John Calvin’s doctrines drew far more protest than any other – namely, his notion of predestination. According to Calvin, predestination is the idea that the ultimate fate (heaven or hell) of each person has already been pre-determined by God, regardless of any earthly events or influences. Naturally, Calvinists all considered themselves to have been chosen from before birth as God’s saved people, while all other outsiders, as non-Calvinists, they believed to be necessarily beyond salvation. Of course, this idea outraged many people, Protestants, Catholics, and others besides, who were none too pleased to be told that John Calvin considered their lives as nothing more than an eternally doomed prospect.

Like the rest of Europe at the time, England had also been experiencing the stirring influences of the rising Protestant Reformation. But concrete action had yet to be taken, until King Henry VIII’s personal desires fatally clashed with Catholic dogma. Unhappy with his current wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, and desperate to finally have a male heir, King Henry VIII was determined to divorce Queen Catherine and wed her lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. However, divorce was a tricky matter during this era and could only be granted through Papal permission. King Henry personally appealed to Pope Clement VII, asking that he be allowed to divorce Catherine in favor of Anne, but the Pope, who was currently being held prisoner by Catherine’s nephew (aka the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) was not at all inclined to grant this request. Incensed, King Henry decided that he didn’t need to listen to the Vatican and he married Anne Boleyn anyway, declaring his divorce from Catherine to be legal under his authority as supreme sovereign of England. Then, in defiance of the Pope’s orders, in 1534 King Henry passed the Act of Supremacy, which declared that the entire nation of England was no longer a Catholic country, had no allegiance to the Vatican or to the Pope, and was no longer going to render either monetary or military support to the Papal State. Furthermore, King Henry declared that he himself, as England’s ruler, was the dominant religious leader in the land and so he created the Church of England (aka Anglicanism), the new official state religion.

As is true with most transformative movements (both political and social), the biggest threat to the Reformation actually came from within the group itself. After all, during the early days of the Reformation, the most powerful imperial forces (such as Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire) were far too busy quarreling and jockeying for power amongst themselves to muster up any serious opposition to the Protestant reformers. Consequently, the Reformation instead nearly tore itself apart from the inside, as various internal conflicts erupted. These disagreements had their roots in many concerns, including class differences, doctrinal disputes, and leadership concerns, and the many regional divisions that existed throughout the German area only exacerbated the dilemma. Further challenges to the Reformation were posed by several peasant uprisings that arose throughout Germany, as desperate peasants took up arms against their government. Many of these peasant groups claimed Luther as their inspiration, citing his teachings and support of individualism as ample justification for what they termed as their rebellion against the tyranny of the local German administrators. Yet Luther and many of his fellow Lutherans had no interest in involving themselves in any sort of political revolution – their mission, as they saw it, was religious and moral, rather than some sort of sociopolitical conflict. Luther therefore publically disavowed any support for the peasants, in what many historians regard as a savvy move, at least as it related to Luther's own survival.

Matteo Ricci is famous for his missionary work in China, on behalf of the Catholic Church, in the late sixteenth century. Ricci is responsible for many of the early in-roads made by Christianity in east Asia and is also one of the first Europeans to be able to read, write, and speak traditional Chinese.

The Gulek school of Tibetan Buddhism is famous for its historical relationship with the Yuan dynasty, a Chinese empire founded by victorious Mongol rulers.

The Russian empire's patronage extended to the Orthodox Christian church, not Geluk Buddhism, although many Buddhists lived in the Russian empire.

Historically, imperial Japan had its own forms of Buddhism such as Zen, not Tibetan based Geluk.

The Athenian empire had no Buddhist influence or culture.

The Zulu empire also had no Buddhist influence or culture.