Person1509 – 1564

John Calvin

Also called: Jean Calvin, Calvin

French-born reformer who wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion and led a godly commonwealth in Geneva, teaching predestination and the calling of everyday work

Born at Noyon in northern France, he studied theology and law at Paris and Orléans as a humanist. After turning Protestant around 1533 he fled persecution to Basel, where at twenty-six he published the first edition of the Institutes. Expelled from Geneva, he married during his stay in Strasbourg and returned at the city’s request in 1541. He was criticised for agreeing to the burning of Servetus, who denied the Trinity. Frail in health, he left a vast body of sermons and biblical commentaries and died in Geneva.

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1 related event

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1541Calvin’s Reformation in Genevaleader
Returning to Geneva in 1541, Calvin built a strict godly community and taught predestination and the calling of daily work; backed by merchants and craftsmen, Calvinism spread as Huguenots, Beggars (Geuzen), Puritans and Presbyterians.

Themes this person appears in

Reformation and Absolutism1517 – 1796
From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states