This week in Christian history: Thomas More, Knights of Columbus, John Calvin

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, February 03, 2019

John Calvin preaches last sermon – February 6, 1564

Jean Calvin's statue at Geneva's Reformation Wall, a 100 meters long monument depicting Protestant figures from across Europe. | (Photo: AP / File)

This week marks the anniversary of when influential Protestant Reformation leader John Calvin preached his final sermon, a few months before he passed away.

At that point, Calvin was suffering from a series of illnesses. The man whose theological views gave birth to Presbyterianism had to be carried in a chair to his pulpit.

“I have lived amidst extraordinary struggles here; I have been saluted in mockery at night, before my door, by fifty or sixty shots from guns. Think how that would terrify a poor timid scholar such as I am,” said Calvin near the end of his life.

“God has given me the power to write, but I have written nothing in hatred . . . but always I have faithfully attempted what I believed to be for the glory of God.”