FARMINGTON —Fairbanks Union Church, a member of the Presbyterian, USA, will celebrate the 500th birthday of John Calvin during worship at 9 a.m. Sunday, July 12.

In the service celebrating Calvin’s life, the congregation will imagine worship in 16th century Geneva, Switzerland, where Calvin was pastor. They will sing Protestant Reformation hymns, use Calvin’s liturgy and hear a sermon Calvin preached. The congregation will be visited by John Calvin himself.

For more information, call Scott Planting at 778-4705.

John Calvin (July 1509-May 1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he suddenly broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1520s. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where in 1536 he published the first edition of his seminal work, “Institutes of the Christian Religion.”

Calvin’s writing and preaching provided the seeds for the branch of theology that bears his name. The Presbyterian and other Reformed churches, which look to Calvin as a chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world.

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