One does not understand by Calvinism doctrines or an ecclesiology exits directly of the thought and practice of Jean Calvin, but, in a broad way, which relates to the history, the thought, the culture and the influence of the reformed Churches (Reform).

Though those are not exclusively tributary of Calvin, but also of Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger, even of Philipp Melanchthon, it is however the reformer of Geneva which gave them its name, so much he quickly appeared as the dominant figure of the Protestantism which was not attached to the Reform of Luther.

Among the other points of divergence, it is necessary to mention the doctrines of predestination, the Lutherans challenging double predestination calvinienne, and that of the two reigns, the calvinists not admitting that there can be autonomy of the temporal reign and readily giving an opinion in the political arena, in particular by justifying the right of Resistance to the tyrant. As regards ecclesiastical organization, the Calvinism was also distinguished from the Lutheranism.

Whereas this last was, at the origin, a confession related to monarchical states and was thus directly subjected to the civil power, the Calvinism was freer: its faithful often dispersed (France, the future United States) or alive in countries to republican structure (Swiss, United Provinces), it developed the idea of a relatively autonomous ecclesiastical jurisdiction compared to the civil jurisdiction. It rested on the presbytéro-synodal system, representative structure where laic and pastors shared the same powers, made up at the local level Consistories and the regional or national level of Synods. Lastly, the Calvinism was anxious to make respect the ecclesiastical discipline; the consistories took care on the beliefs and manners.

Extension of the Calvinism

Geneva and Zurich
Since 1549, a theological axis between Geneva and Zurich were constituted starting from the Consensus tigurinus by which Calvin and Bullinger (the successor of Zwingli) expressed their agreement on holy the Holy Communion. The theological bases of the Calvinism were posed and Bullinger gave him in 1566 its principal expression symbolic system with the posterior Swiss Confession (Swiss Confessions). The successor of Calvin, Theodore de Bèze, played a central role in the constitution of Europe calvinist which developed in second half of the XVI E S. the Calvinism extended in France, where it was the religion of Huguenot to which Henri IV granted a legal existence with the edict of Nantes (1598); its revocation in 1685 per Louis XIV caused the refuge of tens of thousands of calvinists in Switzerland and in the Protestant rest of Europe (Protestant Refugees).

Germany
The Calvinism was spread in Germany, took root in Palatinat where the famous catechism of Heidelberg in 1563 was written, and from where it extended in the principalities or towns of Nassau, Bremen, Lippe, Hesse-Cassel, Brandebourg and where it ends up being recognized officially by the treaties of Westphalia in 1648.

Scotland and England
It was introduced in Scotland under the impulse of the disciple of Calvin, John Knox, in England where it developed in the puritan movement, current to which one can attach Oliver Cromwell, in North America, where unloaded into 1620 Pilgrim' S Fathers, carrying a Presbyterian design of the Church. The Calvinism extended as far as Hungary and in Transylvania.

Netherlands
But it is in the Netherlands that he experienced the most vigorous development and that took place its principal conflict doctrinal, around the problem of the double predestination. Sliced by the synod of Dordrecht in 1618-1619, the confrontation led to the establishment of the standards of Protestant Orthodoxy for one century (human nature completely corrupted, unconditional divine election, died of the Christ intended for the only elected officials, irresistible grace, perseverance of the elected officials until final safety). It is to defend this orthodoxy allegedly threatened by the theological school of Saumur, a little more open as regards doctrines of the grace and of biblical criticism, that the Swiss Churches imposed to their pastors the signature of Formula Consensus (1675).

The Calvinism does not undergo of it less one evolution at the beginning of the XVIII E S., mainly under the impulse of three pastors and professors, the Genevese Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, Neuchâtelois Jean-Frederic Ostervald and From Basel Samuel Werenfels, closer to the Lights than of the theology of Calvin or Bullinger. Consequently, the confessions of faith lost of their normative nature, undergoing the attacks of historical criticism and the applied sciences.

At the XIXe century

To the XIX E S., the Calvinism was crossed by contradictory currents: the Alarm clock, on the one hand, which claimed to restore the theological formulations of XVIe S. within a framework marked by the pietism and the Methodism; the liberalism in addition which, developing the rational criticism of theology, were to dissolve the Calvinism in Protestant theologies of the conscience, the culture, the feeling, etc

In 1875, the calvinists of the whole world federated in an Alliance Presbyterian world (Alliance reformed world since 1921), whose seat is in Geneva and who joins together more than 75 million Christians in 2003, including 2.6 million Swiss Protestants. The Calvinism played a central role in the development of Oecumenism.

It is Pasteur Dutch calvinist, Willem Visser' T Hooft, which was the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches installed in Geneva in 1948. Most important of the theologists of origin calvinist to the XX E S. is From Basel Karl Barth. If its thought largely exceeds the borders of the Calvinism, she does not claim less thought of Calvin and other theologists who contributed to work this current to the XVI E S.

At the XXe century

At the beginning of the XX E S., the Calvinism appeared in the Monument of the Reformation of Geneva, built between 1909 and 1919. This monument marks the world expansion of the Calvinism and wants to express its aspirations, that is to say the heritage of Calvin. Recommending the development of the state education, requiring personal liabilities in private ethics and a rigorous morality in the public affairs, denouncing religious and political tyranny, asserting the free examination as of the XVIII E S. and at the next century, under the impulse of Alexandre Vinet, the freedom of the religious convictions, defending in policy the democratic representative system, requiring the abolition of slavery and a certain social justice, the Calvinism contributed to the constitution of a certain vision of the human rights.

Lastly, legitimating the loan with interest realizing certain guarantees, it supported of this fact the development of a network of Protestant banks as of the XVII E S. (named the International Huguenot one by Herbert Lüthy). In a thesis, often reduced wrongly of a direct causality between Reform and capitalism, Max Weber thought of seeing in him the factor which allowed the development of the economy in a liberal and capitalist direction.