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 On July 10, 1509, the Protestant reformer John Calvin was born in Nyon, France.
In 1533, Calvin experienced a religious transformation. However, since Protestantism was suspect in Paris, he had to flee the city, and a year of wandering followed. He was hunted from city to city and often used assumed names to escape detection.
After some time, he decided to go to Strasbourg to pursue the quiet life of a scholar. His route took him through Geneva, a city that had recently embraced the Reformation. He stayed in Geneva to advance the cause of the Reformation.
He worked with the reformer Guillaume Farel in Geneva to promote the Reformation. Two years later the Roman Catholics gained the ascendancy and Calvin and Farel were expelled from the city.
Calvin and Farel worked hard for those two years to make of Geneva a model community or “city of God,” and to secure the freedom of the Church from the State. Their proposals soon aroused bitter opposition and Calvin's opponents won the city election. This development ultimately led to the expulsion of Farel and Calvin from the city of Geneva.
In 1541, the Genevans prevailed upon Calvin to return and lead them again in reforming the Church and turning Geneva into a Protestant theocracy. He held no government office and did not even gain citizenship in Geneva until 1559, but he dominated the city. He exercised strict discipline over the morals of the community and drew up a new form of government and liturgy for the church.
Luther, under the force of circumstances, had allowed the German territorial princes a great deal of power in the affairs of the Church. Calvin's idea, on the other hand, was of a Church free and independent from the State. Calvin was also largely responsible for a system of universal education for the young and programs to care for the poor and aged. He established the Geneva Academy, the first Protestant university.
Calvin gained followers everywhere through his university, his pattern of Church government, and his writings. Calvin's theology and form of Church government eventually triumphed in the Protestant Church of France, the Church of Scotland, the Reformed Church in Hungary and Holland, and in Puritanism in England and New England.
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