Reformed Church of France

Reformed Church of France, church organized in 1938 by merging several Reformed churches that had developed in France during and after the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. During the early part of the Reformation, Protestant movements made slow progress in France. Yet reforming movements within the Roman Catholic Church had appeared early. Before Martin Luther had emerged as a reformer in Germany, French humanists had created much interest in biblical studies and had aroused a concern for a purer type of Christianity. Margaret of Angoulême, a sister of King Francis I, became the centre of a humanistic group known as the group of Meaux, which created great interest in reform. Its members contributed much by their writings to biblical and theological studies that were used by the Protestants. Several members of the group left it and became Protestants. Not until 1555, however, was any attempt made to organize Protestant congregations in France. The Reformation movement then gained rapidly in France until 1562, when a long series of civil wars began in France and the Huguenots (French Protestants) alternately gained and lost. During this period of strife the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day occurred (1572), and several thousand Huguenots were murdered.

Peace was restored when the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre, became king of France (Henry IV; reigned 1589–1610) and accepted Roman Catholicism. This satisfied the Roman Catholics, and Henry in 1598 promulgated the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed the Huguenots virtual freedom of religion. French Protestantism then made a good recovery from the persecutions it had endured, but the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV in 1685. Protestants again suffered persecutions before and after this act, and, despite laws against emigration, more than 250,000 Huguenots fled to Germany, Holland, England, Switzerland, and America. Those who remained in France persisted as a virtual underground movement and did not regain their full rights until the French Revolution in 1789.

After 1848 the union of Reformed churches in France ceased to exist. Schisms occurred because of disagreements between the conservative and liberal wings. The conservatives maintained strict loyalty to the ancient confessions of the church, while the liberals encouraged individual liberty of conscience and were hostile to any obligatory confession of faith. By the early 20th century these disputes had resulted in the formation of four major Reformed groups in France. A 1905 French law separated all religious groups from the state, and the churches had to support themselves on their own from that time.

Efforts to unite the Reformed churches caused the national synods of the four Reformed groups to enter into negotiations in 1933 and to vote a common declaration of faith in 1936. As a result the Reformed Church of France was organized in 1938.

The Reformed and Lutheran churches of Alsace-Lorraine, however, are supported by the French state. This is a continuation of the situation of the churches in France at the time Alsace-Lorraine was annexed to Germany after the Franco-German War of 1870–71. The area was returned to France after World War I.