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JOHN CALVIN : LIFE, LEGACY AND THEOLOGY -<br />
PROF. M. M. NINAN<br />
CHAPTER TEN<br />
LEGACY OF CALVIN<br />
Continued <strong>Legacy</strong><br />
After the deaths of <strong>Calvin</strong> <strong>and</strong> his successor, Beza, the Geneva city council gradually gained control<br />
over areas of life that were previously in the ecclesiastical domain. Increasing secularisation was<br />
accompanied by the decline of the church.<br />
Even the Geneva académie was eclipsed by universities in Leiden <strong>and</strong> Heidelberg, which became the<br />
new strongholds of <strong>Calvin</strong>'s ideas. It washere that they first inamed <strong>Calvin</strong>s theology as "<strong>Calvin</strong>ism"<br />
by Joachim Westphal in 1552. By 1585, Geneva, once the wellspring of the reform movement, had<br />
become merely its symbol. <strong>Calvin</strong> had always warned against describing him as an "idol" <strong>and</strong><br />
Geneva as a new "Jerusalem". He encouraged people to adapt to the environments in which they<br />
found themselves. Even during his polemical exchange with Westphal, he advised a group of<br />
French-speaking refugees, who had settled in Wesel, Germany, to integrate with the local Lutheran<br />
churches. Despite his differences with the Lutherans, he did not deny that they were members of the<br />
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