Continental Reformed church

The Reformed Churches (often also called Protestant Reformed Churches) form one of the major Christian denominations in the Reformation tradition that originated in Central Europe. They go back mainly to the work of Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich and John Calvin in Geneva (Calvinism) in the course of the Reformation.

The Reformed churches belong to the Protestant churches just like the Evangelical Lutheran churches. Most Reformed churches today are united in the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Worldwide, the Presbyterian churches, which originated in Scotland, are the largest group in the family of Reformed churches.

In Reformed theology, the Bible, understood as divine revelation, occupies the central place; this is reflected in the simplicity of the church rooms and the worship service, which should be centered on the proclamation of the gospel and contain as few extra-biblical elements as possible. The sacraments, namely the Lord's Supper, also take a back seat in worship practice compared to Catholicism and Lutheranism, and are understood as purely symbolic acts placed in the service of proclamation. Another essential characteristic of Reformed theology is the strong emphasis on the doctrine of predestination, the idea of God's choosing people for salvation (or damnation) without the possibility of human influence.

Distribution

Today Reformed churches are widespread on all continents, but they are a majority in only a few countries. Countries with majority Reformed churches include Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Niue; until the 1950s, they also included Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, and as late as the 1970s, Switzerland. The Protestant Church in the Netherlands, a church union between Reformed and Lutherans founded in 2004, is now the second largest communion there. In Switzerland, the membership of the Reformed Church is slightly lower than that of the Catholic Church. Traditional Reformed minorities from the Reformation period exist in France (Huguenots), Poland, Hungary/Romania and Lithuania. Larger Reformed churches also exist in North America, dating back to Puritan immigrants from Britain, among others. Among others, the Presbyterian Church and the United Church of Christ should be mentioned.

In Switzerland, all the Protestant national churches are of the Reformed confession; together with the Methodist Church, they form the Evangelical Reformed Church of Switzerland.

In Austria the Reformed congregations are united in the Evangelical Church H.B..

In Germany there are two Reformed regional churches, the Evangelical Reformed Church and the Lippe Regional Church, which together with other Lutheran and Uniate regional churches form the Evangelical Church in Germany. In the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz, Reformed congregations are united in Reformed church districts. Reformed convents exist in the regional churches of the Rhineland and Hesse-Nassau. In addition, there is the Federation of Protestant Reformed Churches in Germany and the Evangelical Old Reformed Church in Northwest Germany, which is constituted as a free church. The umbrella organization of the approximately two million German Reformed Christians is the Reformed Federation. In addition, there are some free churches with an explicitly Reformed confession, such as the Confessing Evangelical Reformed Church in Giessen.

In Germany the Reformed Church is especially widespread in the Hunsrück, in the Wittgensteiner Land, in Lippe, on the Lower Rhine, in the Bergisches Land (Wuppertal), in the Siegerland, in Northwest Germany (especially Grafschaft Bentheim, Grafschaft Lingen and East Friesland) and Bremen, in the Ravensberger Land, on the Plesse, in Bavaria and in Berlin and Brandenburg.

History

The "Urdatum" is the sausage dinner at the Zurich burgher Christoph Froschauer's, a print shop owner, on Invokavit 1522 (9 March), i.e. the first Sunday of the pre-Easter Lent. Zwingli is said not to have eaten himself, but to have been present at the sausage dinner. As a priest he defended the breaking of the fast: the commandment to fast was a human law and therefore not necessarily valid. Only divine laws must be obeyed unconditionally. Zwingli found the divine laws in the Bible.

Zwingli's Reformation spread over the next few years to other Swiss cities (Bern, Basel, St. Gallen), southern Germany and Alsace. Reformed centers were Strasbourg, Memmingen, Lindau and Constance. In contrast to Lutheranism, Zwingli's Reformed Church was linked to the republican cities from its beginnings - the governments elected by the people opted for the Reformation, often as a result of disputations. A union with the Lutheran branch of the Reformation did not succeed at the Marburg Religious Conversation in 1529 between Luther and Zwingli, largely because no agreement could be reached on the issue of the Lord's Supper. Luther held to the real presence (Realpräsenz) of the body and blood of Christ in the forms of the Supper, while Zwingli understood the Supper as a symbol.

After Zwingli's death, it was Heinrich Bullinger, his successor as Zurich antist, who consolidated the Reformation in German-speaking Switzerland and, through his extensive correspondence, was the most influential Reformed leader throughout Europe during his lifetime.

Five years after Bullinger took office, the effectiveness of John Calvin, the founder of the second branch of Reformed theology, began in Geneva. The Reformation of the Geneva direction spread especially in France, where the Huguenots became the majority of the population in some parts of the country. During the Huguenot Wars, many Huguenots fled abroad, where they founded French Reformed congregations, including, for example, in Berlin, Brandenburg, Erlangen, Hamburg, Schwabach and the Netherlands.

While in the German, Dutch and Scottish areas the Genevan direction prevailed, in England it was Bullinger whose theology had a major influence on the Anglican Reformation.

In Switzerland, the German-speaking areas followed the Zwinglian direction, Geneva and Neuchâtel the Calvinist one. Vaud occupied an intermediate position. The Reformation was forcibly introduced in the Bernese subject territories; later Vaud - as a primarily French-speaking territory - came under strong Geneva influence. Thus, although it essentially retained the Zwinglian theology, it introduced the Calvinist church model, which was independent of the state, under pressure from Geneva. In 1549 the Consensus Tigurinus of Bullinger and Calvin led to an agreement between the two schools of thought, which is still valid today for the Protestant Reformed churches in Switzerland.

Marburg religious discussion 1529, detail of the Zwingli portal at the Grossmünster in Zurich