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Churches built in northern Europe
for Protestant congregations, such as
this Lutheran church in Vik, Iceland,
are often plain in design, eschewing
any embellishment or decoration.
CHRISTIANITY
program was started, with
the intention of constructing
great new churches with space
for thousands of worshippers, and
acoustics designed—for the first
time—for vernacular sermons.
Ignatius Loyola, a former soldier
and the son of a Spanish nobleman,
was charged with setting up
the Society of Jesus, an order of
missionaries also known as the
Jesuits, who were willing to go
anywhere without regard to their
own safety, to spread Catholicism.
The Church also used a process
known as the Inquisition to
reassert its authority, prosecuting
people accused of heresy and
using often brutal methods to
extract the truth from the accused.
Exit from the Dark Ages
The Counter-Reformation was
partly successful in Italy, Spain,
and France, but changes made to
the Catholic structures elsewhere
were minimal, and certainly not
John Calvin Born in northern France in 1509,
John Calvin came into contact
with Christian Humanism while
at the University of Bourges,
where he devoted himself to
theological study. During this
period, he experienced a religious
conversion that caused him to
break with the Roman Catholic
Church and join the growing
Protestant movement. Forced to
flee France, Calvin became a
minister in Geneva, Switzerland,
from 1536 to 1538, then Strassburg
(now Strasbourg) until 1541, before
returning to Geneva, where he
remained until his death in 1564.Calvin stressed humanity’s
sinfulness and inability to know
God without the study of
Scripture; he emphasized God’s
sovereignty, which meant God
could freely give the gift of
salvation to whoever he chose.
Followers of Calvin, known
as Calvinists, established
churches around the world that
became known as presbyterian,
from the Greek for “elder.”Key works1536 Institutes of the Christian
Religion (first Latin edition)enough to entice the Protestants
back to the fold. From then on,
Europe was host to a marketplace
of different churches, each vying for
the hearts and minds of Christians.
While Catholicism could claim a
long and illustrious heritage, the
idea of Protestantism seemed to
match the spirit of the age. One of
the mottos of the Reformation was
post tenebras lux, “after darkness,light.” After the so-called Dark
Ages, the Protestant spirit sought
to shed the skin of medieval
Catholicism and embrace a new
world of ideas. It was especially
confident that reading and hearing
the Bible in a language that could
be clearly understood would lead
to a relationship with God that
was uncluttered by priests, popes,
and indulgences. ■