What were some immediate effects and long term effects of the Protestant Reformation?

The immediate effect of the Protestant Reformation is that it led to a schism that culminated in the creation of several new denominations within western Christianity. The teachings of Martin Luther and others were reflected in the establishment of new churches throughout Western Europe in locations like Germany and Switzerland. This meant that the Catholic Church lost a great deal of political power, especially in the collection of principalities and city-states known as the Holy Roman Empire, and of course in England, where Henry VIII formally separated the kingdom from the Church in 1534.

Some of the long-term effects of the Reformation included the outbreak of religious wars in the Holy Roman Empire and France that spanned much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These included the Thirty Years' War, which devastated the region. But the Reformation, because Protestants emphasized the primacy of Scriptural authority, also fostered literacy in Western Europe. Above all, it led to the flowering of dozens of Protestant sects that changed modern Christianity forever.