Lutheranism and The Reformed Faith on the Continent

Adolf Keller
1934 Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture  
It is a well known fact that the Lutheran Reformation has found entrance mostly into the nations of the Germanic race. The larger part of Germany and the northern countries around the Baltic Sea are Lutheran. Lutheranism has also gathered small groups in France, Holland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, but it is safe to say that there exists a certain affinity between the Lutheran faith and the Germanic race. The Reformed faith, in the form of Calvinism or of the Zwinglian Reformation, has a more
more » ... nternational character. From its birthplaces in Zurich and Geneva it penetrated into France, Holland, Scotland, Hungary, Lithuania, and conquered even the House of Hohenzollern. The relationship between the two confessions, considered from a statistical point of view, has undergone but little change in the last few centuries. The most important alterations perhaps have taken place as a result of the union in the Church of Prussia and of the formation of the Czechoslovak Church of the Czech Brethren. The Reformed faith has been nearly extinguished in Russia where the larger parishes disappeared or were dissolved into Lutheran parishes. In Greece a young Presbyterian church is in the process of formation, and was considerably increased by the emigration of Greek refugees from Anatolia where the Southern Presbyterians had planted a hopeful missionary church. The present situation of the two great Protestant communions on the Continent is influenced by the general crisis, the interdenominational movement towards unity, the reawakening 173
doi:10.1017/s0009640700010234 fatcat:wpkt4e5xjzbxxoq4y4okplho4y