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John Calvin

JOHN CALVIN

1509 - 1564

The theologian and moralist John Calvin is considered one of the prominent figures in the history of Europe. Various topics revolutionized the lives of hundreds of millions of people in a period of time more than 400 years.

Calvin researched theology and government, personal morals and work habits, and these different researches qualified him for the possession of fame that affected the world for a period of time.

John Calvin was born in 1509 in the city of Noyon in France, and he received a large amount of education, and after his studies at the College of Paris, he moved to the University of Orleans to study law. He also studied law in (Burgas).

Calvin was eight years old when Luther hung the ninety-five protests on the door of Wittenberg Church, thus laying the foundation stone for the Protestant Reformation. He studied extensively, and when he became twenty-seven years old, he published his most famous book, which is (The Institutions of the Christian Religion). In this book, a description and summary of the beliefs of the Protestant sect is written convincingly, comprehensively and programmed.

In the year 1536 he visited Geneva in Switzerland, where Protestantism was spreading and strengthening, and he was asked to remain there as a professor and mentor to the Protestant community. But soon conflict arose between the violent Puritan Calvin and the people of Geneva.

In 1538 he was forced to leave the city, but in 1541 he was invited to return to it, so he did so and became not only the religious leader of the city, but the political leader with full influence until his death in 1564 0

Theoretically, Calvin was not the absolute dictator in Geneva, because the citizens of that city had the right to vote, and there was a council of 25 people who bore responsibility for political power, and Calvin was not a member of that council, as he was reluctant to be impeached at any time (he was actually expelled in 1538). ) If he did not win the approval of the majority in the council, and therefore we see that Calvin actually ruled the city, and after 1555 he became a purely autocratic ruler.

Under Calvin's leadership, Geneva became the greatest Protestant center in Central Europe. Calvin constantly tried to encourage the spread of Protestantism in other countries, especially France. Geneva was referred to as "Protestant Rome".

Calvin was not tolerant in his religious belief, as he used to strike his opponents with an iron fist, and the most important and famous of his victims was what Servetus called a Spanish scholar and theologian who did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, and when Servetus came to Geneva, he was arrested and tried on charges of atheism, then he was sentenced to be burned at the stake and executed. He ruled in 1553. In addition, many persons who were accused only of suspicion were burned at the stake also during Calvin's reign.

Calvin died in Geneva in 1564 and he had been married, but his wife died in 1549 and their only son died at his birth.

The importance of Calvin is not his direct political activity but the ideology that he created and established, then broadcast and disseminated. He emphasized the authority and importance of the Bible, and as Luther did, he denied the authority of the Catholic Church in Rome.