Its action was immense and extended to all the fields: religion, culture, policy, economy. it is false to see in him a dictator who asserts himself by the force. Its only official function is the presidency of the Company of the pastors. It does not occupy any political load.

But its genius is such as the magistrates resort to its lights on any subject. The occasions do not miss in these difficult times when it is a question of rebuilding a State on new bases. It essentially writes the civil Edicts of 1543, which are used as constitution with the Republic, tries to which its training of lawyer makes it better suited that the members of the government, of which none made academic works. In 1541, it had already composed the ecclesiastical Ordinances, laws constitutive of the Church. Thus, so much in the religious field than in the political arena, Calvin was the legislator of Geneva of the Former regime.

Until 1555, Jean Calvin met savage adversaries. They are not catholics, there is not more or they hide. They are rather notable families which had been among the first to be converted and the most hastened to accommodate the reformer. They will reject it little by little.

Their animosity comes initially from the place that Calvin fixes at the Church and his representatives, the pastors. Whereas the other cantons gained by the Reform the Church enters the dependence of the State, Calvin wants to institute a balance between the ecclesiastical power and the political power.

In the second place, Calvin fights for a discipline of life severe, morality and religion being closely associated. Manners must be supervised closely, the repressed luxury. A court, the Consistory, understanding pastors and the laic ones, is charged to punish the infringements.

In the principles, nothing again. Antiquity, the Middle Ages knew regulations morals and laws intended to fight the luxury, vestimentary for example. The difference lies in the application. Elsewhere, if the rule is strict, the practice is much less. In Geneva, under the impulse of Calvin, one will endeavor to make coincide, the best possible one, the law and repression. This will cause “a heavy despotism on the private life”. The rebels with the discipline are sermonized or excommunicated by the Consistory, to what penal sanctions inflicted by the Small Council are often added. Members of known families are condemned, which they hardly appreciate.

For all the enumerated reasons, a good part of the leading class maintains a more or less open opposition. In 1555, the General advice chooses for syndics four partisans of Calvin. A false step of its adversaries, which foment a riot, makes it possible to the Councils to act against these guilty men of treason. Some are carried out, others flee. During the nine years which remain to him to be lived, Calvin will have a friendly civil power at his sides.

Execution of Michel Servet

The year 1553 is famous for the great crime, so much reproached to Calvin, the death of Michel Servet, burned in Champel. It should be observed that Michel Servet, while denying the dogma of the Trinity, had gone hateful to all the Churches. He had already been condemned to died by the catholic Enquiry and had escaped with the punishment only by one escape.

In Geneva, it was punished of died by a sentence of the Small Council, only able to emit criminal sentences. Admittedly, Calvin and the other pastors of Geneva had been consulted and had given a notice of death, just as the Protestant Churches of Switzerland, questioned they too. Servet was one of the only victims, in Geneva, of its religious opinions; no catholic was never carried out there to have professed his faith.