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Trinity

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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 />

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