Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD:<br />
PROF. M. M. NINAN<br />
Following the Reformation<br />
Following the Protestant Reformation, and the German Peasants' War of 1524–1525, by<br />
1530 large areas of Northern Europe were Protestant, and forms of nontrinitarianism<br />
began to surface among some "Radical Reformation" groups, particularly Anabaptists.<br />
The first recorded English antitrinitarian was John Assheton (1548), an Anglican priest.<br />
The Italian Anabaptist "Council of Venice" (1550) and the trial of Michael Servetus (1553)<br />
marked the clear emergence of markedly antitrinitarian Protestants.<br />
Though the only organized nontrinitarian churches were the Polish Brethren who split<br />
from the Calvinists (1565, expelled from Poland 1658), and the Unitarian Church of<br />
Transylvania..<br />
Nonconformists, Dissenters and Latitudinarians in Britain were often Arians or<br />
Unitarians, and the Doctrine of the <strong>Trinity</strong> Act 1813 allowed nontrinitarian worship in<br />
Britain.<br />
In America, Arian and Unitarian views were also found among some Millennialist and<br />
Adventist groups, though the Unitarian Church itself began to decline in numbers and<br />
influence after the 1870s.<br />
106