Book chapter
The Genevan Model and Gallican Originality in the French Reformed Tradition
Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe, pp.155-172
Routledge
2007
DOI: 10.4324/9781315565606-17
Abstract
The Reformation that engulfed early modern Europe was plainly more than
a series of individual and unconnected events, which took place in isolated
national context. Broad supra-national and cross-cultural attachments
ran through sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Protestantism, and
nowhere is the evidence for these international connections stronger than
in the movement fostered by John Calvin. He had initially undertaken
to reform the francophone city of Geneva. Thereafter, Calvin’s views on
Christian theology, worship and polity found favor in his native France,
the Netherlands and British Isles, Germany, Hungary, and beyond.
Understandably, the various national churches enjoyed and sustained
vital, powerful bonds. The multiple contacts and numerous interactions
afforded considerable benefit. At the same time, each of the national strains
within the Reformed tradition acquired and elaborated its own special
character and distinguishing features. The churches flourished within
discrete cultural, linguistic and political surroundings. They established
theologically sophisticated individual confessions and composed separate
statements on church order and discipline. Their ecclesiastical leaders
gathered regularly in national synods, instituted liturgical practices that
met the needs and tastes of their particular congregations, and organized
consistories with differing composition, procedures and duties. The
various churches settled, in ways suited to their specific institutions and
customs, the relationship between ecclesiastical and political authorities.
Upon occasion, they even created unique architectural forms.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Genevan Model and Gallican Originality in the French Reformed Tradition
- Creators
- Raymond A Mentzer - University of Iowa, History
- Contributors
- Mack P Holt (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe, pp.155-172
- Publisher
- Routledge
- DOI
- 10.4324/9781315565606-17
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2007
- Academic Unit
- History; Religious Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984278129402771
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