At the time of Henry VII's death, England was a Catholic Kingdom and remained so for the first twenty three years of Henry VIII's reign; however, when Henry VIII met with objections from the Pope in 1532 to divorce the Queen Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, he broke with the Catholic Church and formed the Church of England. Thus began the Protestant Reformation in England. After Henry VIII died, his son, Edward VI, continued the reformation movement. Edward was a sickly king and soon died, however. Mary Tudor took the throne and re-established Catholicism in England. Finally, Elizabeth I took the throne from Mary and permanently established Protestantism and the Church of England as the dominant religion in England. 

In the middle of the sixteenth century, France was embroiled in a bitter civil war between the aristocratic families of Valois, Bourbon, and Guise. The war ended in victory for the Bourbon family and marked the beginning of the reign of Henry IV. Henry famously converted to Catholicism upon claiming the throne in Paris, in order to appease the majority of Parisians, who were Catholic. His famous quote is "France is worth a mass."

During the Protestant Reformation, the Ottoman Empire invaded Hungary (then under control of the Hapsburg Holy Roman, and Catholic, Empire). The Ottomans conquered the territory and the Hungarian people lost faith in their Catholic rulers, and in Catholicism itself, to protect them. By 1600, the vast majority of the country had converted to Protestantism, although this would be undone by the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

The ruling family of Poland remained Catholic throughout the Protestant Reformation, but the nobles and landed aristocracy were quick to embrace Protestantism. Interestingly, the peasantry generally sided with the King and with not the nobles and remained fiercely Catholic. 

The Thirty Years' War, fought from 1618 to 1648, was primarily fought as a war of religion between Protestants and Catholics. In Poland and Hungary, it contributed to the declining influence of Protestantism and the resurgence of Catholicism.

The Hussite Church emerged from the teachings of Jan Hus. Hus preached reform in the century before the beginning of the more widely impactful Protestant Reformation, but his reforming movement may be seen as part of the wider European trend. The Hussites were centered in Bohemia, in the modern day Czech Republic.

Throughout Europe, but especially in Germany, Poland, and Hungary the most important factor in determining the religious beliefs of a region or group of people was the religious beliefs of the prince or ruler of that region. If the prince embraced Lutheranism, then a large number of the people under his control would also do so.

The Protestant Reformation made rapid initial gains in both Poland and Hungary. In the century or so that followed the Protestant Reformation, the majority of both countries converted to Protestantism (either Lutheranism or Calvinism); however, both countries were overwhelmed by the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and most of the gains made by Protestants in the sixteenth century were undone in the seventeenth century.

Pogroms were organized attacks on Jewish communities in Russia carried out by the state in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During the sixteenth century, the Hungarian people were overrun by the Ottoman Empire and began to view their Catholic faith as offering inadequate protection. Subsequently, Protestantism gained rapid and almost total popularity, and by the beginning of the seventeenth century, it is estimated that over ninety percent of the population had converted away from Catholicism; however, in the seventeenth century, the Catholic Counter Reformation, led by Hungarian King Ferdinand II, fought back, and by the eighteenth century, the vast majority of Hungarians were Catholic again.