Everything about Guillaume Farel totally explained
William Farel,
Guillaume Farel, (
1489 –
September 13 1565), was a French
evangelist, and a founder of the
Reformed Church in the cantons of
Neuchâtel,
Berne,
Geneva, and
Vaud in
Switzerland. He is most often remembered for having persuaded
John Calvin to remain in
Geneva in
1536, and for persuading him to return there in
1541, after their expulsion in
1538. They influenced the government of Geneva to the point that it became a theocratic state, the
"Protestant Rome", where Protestants took refuge and non-Protestants were persecuted. Together with Calvin, Farel worked to train missionary preachers who spread the
Protestant cause to other countries, and especially to
France.
Farel was a fiery preacher and an energetic critic of the
Roman Catholic Church. In the earliest years of the
Reformation in France, he was a pupil of the pro-reform
Catholic priest,
Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples. With Lefevre he became a member of the
Cercle de Meaux gathered together from 1519 by the reform-minded
bishop of Meaux,
Guillaume Briçonnet, who invited a number of evangelical Humanists to work in his diocese to help implement his reform program within the Catholic Church. This group of Humanists also included
Josse van Clichtove,
Martial Mazurier,
Gérard Roussel, and
François Vatable. The members of the Meaux circle were of different talents but they generally emphasized the study of the Bible and a return to the theology of the early Church. While working with Lefevre in Meaux, Farel came under the influence of
Lutheran ideas and became an avid promoter of them. After condemnation by the
Sorbonne, Farel evangelized fervently in the
Dauphiné.
He was forced to flee to Switzerland because of controversy that was aroused by his writings against the use of images in Christian worship. He spent time at
Zurich with
Huldrych Zwingli and at
Strasbourg, with
Martin Bucer. He convinced
Neuchâtel to join the Reform in 1530.
He established himself in Geneva in 1532, where he remained as minister, drawing Calvin to the city, but breaking with him over the
Eucharist. He was banished from Geneva in 1538, in part for his rigorous positions, and retired to Neuchâtel, where he died.
It is interesting to note that, although Farel was a friend of Calvin's, he was a promoter of Lutheran ideas in his youth. Today, Calvinism and Lutheranism are two completely separate denominations, but Farel's relationship with both would show that they once had more in common than what they share today.
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