John Calvin and the Servetus Controversy

John Calvin's role in the execution of Michael Servetus is one of the longest lasting controversies related to the life of the French theologian and one of the great fathers of the Protestant Reformation.

John Calvin was aware of the views of Michael Servetus who denounced the Trinity (that is, the view of the triune godhead--one God in three forms) which was one of the few doctrines to which both the Catholics and Protestants held firm, in1531. Servetus felt that the trinitarian theology of his modern day church was based on Greek philosophy and not on the Bible. He affirmed the divinity of Christ but believed that Christ was a manifestation of the single divine God, not a unique person in the godhead. He believed that the Son of God was generated at Jesus' birth, not present from the beginning of time. His views were well known but very unpopular as they went against the teachings of both the Catholic church and the Protestant teachings.

Servetus, a Spanish theologian, physician and scientist, invited John Calvin to a gathering in Paris to discuss these differences but, for unknown reasons, Servetus did not arrive. However, he and Calvin began corresponding in 1546. Each wrote under a different pen name and tried to convince the other that his philosophy was wrong, but the dialogue was so bitter and resentful that they stopped writing in 1548. Servetus offered to meet Calvin in Geneva to discuss their differences if he could be guaranteed safe passage, but Calvin refused. It was very clear that Calvin saw Seretus as a heretic and a threat to the gospel, a threat to the religion that they had been fighting so desperately for. Calvin, and those leaders within the church in sixteenth century Europe, exhibited a zeal to root out heresy wherever they could find it. To them, death was an appropriate punishment for teaching doctrines that went against the dogma of both the Protestant and Catholic church. It is clear that Calvin wished only to convert or correct Servetus, and if he could not, then Servetus should be eliminated before he could perpetuate his heresy among the people.

When Servetus arrived in Geneva in 1553, and showed up on Sunday morning in the church in which Calvin was preaching, he was immediately arrested on Calvin's orders. Calvin was the author of charges of heresy, but he did request that Servetus be beheaded rather than burned at the stake. The public trial and burning was at the will of the Geneva city council, and the trial was led by Nicholas de la Fontaine who accused him of nontrinitarianism and paedobaptism (infant baptism). Servetus was burned at the stake along with all available copies of his last work, "Christianismi Restitutio".

John Calvin was later criticized heavily for the role he played in Servetus' execution. Some say that Calvin pushed for his death in order to maintain his ever weakening power over the church in Geneva. He wanted to prove that he could stand firm in his Protestant orthodoxy by not succumbing to the demands of the French Inquisitors who were demanding Servetus' extradition to France for execution. He also may have been trying to match the furor of his Catholic counterparts in Spain who had alreadt sentenced Servetus to death in 1533 in absentia and burned an effigy in his place.