The Formation of the Farellian and Calvinist Networks

Guillaume Farel and later John Calvin insisted that religious reform required uncompromising adherence to a particular set of beliefs, initially focused on the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist. This insistence made working within the existing Church completely untenable, and it put them at odds with Lefèvre, Roussel, and the evangelicals who continued to work for internal reform in France. Farel broke from his old friends when he enthusiastically took the Reformed side in the Lutheran-Reformed quarrels over the Eucharist. He moved to Switzerland, where he became an enthusiastic missionary and wrote the first French Protestant liturgy and theological guide. He and his followers also developed arguments against Nicodemism before Calvin did. When John Calvin arrived in Geneva, he altered some of Farel’s early ideas, especially on the Eucharist, predestination, and moral discipline, but he gained followers, notably Farel himself and Pierre Viret.