John Calvin
1509 – 1564

John Calvin, a French scholar who became a leading preacher and dominant force in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, studied at the University of Paris and at the University of Orleans.

He became dissatisfied with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and allied himself with the cause of the Protestant Reformation in 1532. When the king of France decided to settle the religious question in his country in favor of the Catholics, Calvin fled to Geneva, Switzerland, where his writings and lectures made Geneva the “Rome of Protestantism”.

His Institutes of the Christian Religion became the basis for the Presbyterian way of thought and church life. Calvinism is the main doctrine of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.