HumanitiesHistoryReligious StudiesChristian StudiesEuropean HistoryReligious HistoryReformation HistoryReligious Reform MovementsDoctrinal ReformProtestant ReformationReformation HistoriographyReformation Thought
'Reformed' is the designation of those continental European churches which are known in the English-speaking world as Presbyterian. They are thus branches of the movement flowing from the Calvinist reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Transylvania and parts of German, Czech and Polish lands all had strong reformed churches, at least for a period of time. The famous reformer Jan Łaski (John Lasco) was Polish. Even Italy and Spain produced outstanding Reformed Protestant leaders, such as Pietro Martire Vermigli (Peter Martyr), until the Inquisition exterminated the movement, particularly brutally in Phillip II's Spain. Even Patriarch Kyrillos Loukaris (Cyril Lucaris, 1572-1638) of Constantinople was moving Orthodoxy in a Calvinist direction until he was assassinated. In several instances, Reformed churches bore the brunt of the counter-reformation and suffered many martyrs. Though many Reformed folk have immigrated to Australia from Germany, Czech lands, France, South Africa and other countries, this article concentrates on the Dutch and Hungarians.