Roots of Presbyterianism
John Calvin, father of Presbyterianism.
Presbyterians trace their history to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther (1483-1546) ignited the Reformation with the posting of 95 Theses On the Power of Indulgences on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. Luther's way was prepared by theologians such as John Wycliffe (1330-1384), John Hus (1372-1415), John Wessel (1420-1489), and Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), all of whom were condemned as heretics and met with harsh fates for advancing their radical ideas. Luther's 95 Theses quickly gained popular support throughout Europe. Printing technology using moveable type, developed by Johannes Gutenberg sixty-six years earlier, was intstrumental in allowing the Reformation to become established as a widespread cultural movement.
John Calvin (1509-1564), known as the father of Presbyterianism, was a French philosopher, lawyer and theologian who systematized and consolidated much of the Reformed thinking that came before him. He was exiled from France to Switzerland where he wrote "Institutes of the Christian Religion." This was to become a defining document for Protestants and would result in Calvin becoming the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Geneva. Calvin was again exiled, this time fleeing to Germany, because he refused to accept civil authority over church liturgy. Eventually, he returned and established the church in Geneva as the center of the Reformation in Europe. Central to the Reformed thinking of Luther and Calvin is the emphasis of a direct relationship with God, and salvation by grace alone.
John Knox, a priest born around 1513, converted to Protestantism in 1545 and studied under John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland. He returned to his native Scotland in 1559 where he reformed the Church of Scotland and established the Presbyterian faith. Scottish settlers soon spread the Presbyterian faith to Northern Ireland.
By the early seventeenth century Reformation had become a sweeping cultural movement. The religious establishment resisted and dealt harshly with Protestants. Under the pressure of persecution, many groups of English, French, Dutch, German, Scottish and Irish Protestants were compelled to leave Europe and seek religious freedom and opportunity in the New World.
In 1643 the Scottish, Irish and English Presbyterians convened the Westminister Assembly in England and drafted the Psalter, Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms. These texts would later become cornerstones of American Presbyterianism.