You know of the Protestants, but what about the Proto-Protestants?
A little education in church history for you. “Proto-Protestants is a term used to describe Christian people and movements before the Protestant Reformation who, in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, expressed views identical or very similar to those held by main Protestant reformers and movements.” In other words, Luther and that crowd didn’t appear in a vacuum, being the first with a new idea. To me it seems a little artifical to use Luther as the division between Proto-Protestants and Protestants but I suppose that is the nature of people with their categories–everyone must fit into neat little boxes.
Probably the one Proto-Protestant that most people are familiar with (at least so far as recognizing the name) is John Wycliffe.
More obscure is Jan Hus who was burned at the stake.
Read more on Proto-Protestants here at Wikipedia.
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