THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

8.1 Calvin's Liturgy: Context and Commentary
In April 1538, the council of Geneva summarily evicted John Calvin and
Guillaume Farel from the city. Chastened by his first experience as a pastor, Calvin
elected to retire to Basel, to take up the quieter life of a scholar there. 1099 Even as Farel
had enlisted Calvin to serve the cause of the reformation of Geneva, Bucer now
confronted Calvin in Basel and enlisted him to serve the community of French refugees
in Strasbourg. 1100
By the time Calvin arrived in Strasbourg, the city had been well established as
an important center of Protestantism, not least because of the erudite leadership and
political genius of its mayor, Jacob Sturm. In the mid- to late-1520s and into the 1530s,
it became a prominent destination for French refugees, indeed, the very destination for
the Frenchman "Jean Cauvin" in 1536. In 1538, Bucer and Capito summoned Calvin to
serve a newly formed but growing French congregation, at the time involving about
four or five hundred members. Wendel notes that in September of that year, Calvin
began to preach, first at the Church of St. Nicolas-des-Ondes and then in the Chapel of
the Penitents of St. Magdalene; later, the Magistracy gave the French congregation the
use of the choir of the secularized Church of the Dominicans. 1101 In organizing the
his days.
1099 Farel proceeded to Neuchâtel and established himself as a pastor, a post he held to the end of
1100 Regarding Calvin in Strasbourg, these works and the resources cited there: de Greef,
Writings of John Calvin, 30-41; Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development, 57-68; Jacques Pannier,
Calvin à Strasbourg (Strasbourg, 1925); Daniel Benoit, Calvin à Strasbourg, 1538-1541 (Strasbourg,
1938); Gordon, Calvin, 85ff.
1101 Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development, 59.
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