John Calvin preached in St Peter’s Cathedral in Geneva at the time of the continental Reformation. His works were often hostile towards the practices used in the Roman Church, often described as “Popery”. The Cathedral in Geneva was founded in the twelfth century and probably had its last Catholic Mass in the year 1535. Geneva forced out its last resident Catholic Bishop in 1533. The city became the Rome of strict reformed protestantism and welcomed people like John Knox, the later founder of the Church of Scotland.
What ideas can twenty first century Christians glean about John Calvin’s approach to church unity? What did he see as the obstacles as he reformed the Church in Geneva? Calvin defined a sacrament as “a testimony of divine grace towards us, confirmed by an outer sign” (Institutes 4, 15, 1). He opposed the “papists for they do not make a distinction as they ought to do between the thing and the sign” (Commentary on First Peter, p118). He was strongly opposed to any type of adoration of the sacraments saying “What is their pretext for the boast that they worship Christ in the bread when they have no promise of any such thing? They consecrate the host as they call it to carry it about in procession to display it in solemn spectacle that it may be seen worshipped and called upon” (Institutes 4,17, 36-37)
Calvin ruled out any practice that supported transubstantiation, a doctrine still supported by the Roman Catholic Church today. His teaching on the sacrament supported the idea that it was the consumption of the bread and wine in faith that transformed them into the body and blood of Christ.
He taught that “the Lord’s kindness wherewith he has bestowed this sacred food upon us also teach and form us to receive it with faith and thankfulness of heart” (Institutes4, 17, 43).
For Calvin the celebration of the Mass in his own city of Geneva would have been shocking. Yet in 2022 it has taken place. Even so the unity of protestant denominations with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ seems far away. Just how long will it take for healing of Christ’s Church to honour Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21 that all believers may be “one, even as Thou Father art in me and I in Thee that they may be in us”. How was far is church unity? How long does healing take?
