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Geneva
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · Reformation Wall

Geneva

Calvin · Switzerland

The young French lawyer John Calvin passed through Geneva in 1536 and was persuaded to stay and help with the Reformation. He preached and wrote tirelessly, and his 'Institutes of the Christian Religion' became the main textbook of Reformed faith. Refugees came to Geneva from all over Europe, and the academy he founded trained preachers for France, Scotland and the Netherlands. Today you can see his chair in St Peter's Cathedral, where he preached.

Did you know?

In the university park stands a 100-metre Reformation Wall with statues of Calvin and other reformers.

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An inspiring story

A Bible made by refugees

What can refugees give the country they flee from?

When Queen Mary I persecuted Protestants in England in the 1550s, hundreds fled abroad. Many found refuge in Geneva, a city full of refugees. There a group of English exiles worked for years on a new translation of the Bible. In 1560 the Geneva Bible appeared: affordable, easy to read, with verse numbers, maps and notes to help ordinary people understand it. Why put so much into a country that had driven them out? Because they wanted their own people to be able to read God's word for themselves.

Shakespeare quoted it, and the Pilgrim Fathers carried it on the Mayflower. A gift from refugees shaped a whole language.

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.Leviticus 19:34

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