Pierre Viret

Calvin's Best Friend and Father of the Huguenot Church

Historian and biographer, R.A. Sheats, has written, “The visible history of Christ’s Church is often hidden in clouds of obscurity. For reasons known only to God, He often chooses to conceal some of His greatest treasures, awaiting their rediscovery by the Church in His perfect time. Thus it has been for Pierre Viret, a forgotten giant of the sixteenth century Reformation.”

Ask anyone who has even the scantiest knowledge of the period, “Who was the most significant figure in Geneva’s magisterial Reformation?” and they would of course reply, “John Calvin.” But, Calvin himself would undoubtedly reply, “Oh, no, no, no. To be sure, it was Pierre Viret.”

It was Viret, along with his mentor and friend William Farel, who brought the Reformation to the city of Geneva beginning in 1534. Already he had brought the doctrines of grace to the Swiss towns of Orbe, Grandson, Payerne, and Neuchatel. He led the Genevan Disputation of 1535 and then moved on to Yveedon and Lausanne, where he witnessed great Gospel fruitfulness.

He was back in Geneva in 1536, in time for a fateful meeting with the young Calvin and the fiery Farel. It was then that Farel famously threatened Calvin with divine retribution if he did not remain in the city to labor side-by-side with them. Calvin had only intended to pass through the city on his way to Strasberg. What is less-known about that incident is that it was Viret who softened Farel’s fulminations, persuading Calvin to stay. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and partnership as yokefellows in the faith.

The next year, Viret was in Lausanne overseeing a remarkable reforming work in that city. He pastored a thriving church. He helped to evangelize the neighboring districts. He engaged in several public disputations with Catholic hierarchs. He wrote voluminously. He survived two brutal assassination attempts. And, he established the first academy for Reformed theological training. Viret set about his work tirelessly, discipling some of the brightest minds in the fledgling Reformation movement.

It was Viret who discipled Theodore Beza, who eventually became the headmaster of the Lausanne Academy, and still later, succeeded Calvin in Geneva. It was Viret who discipled Guy de Bray, author of the Belgic Confession. It was Viret who discipled Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. It was Viret who befriended and counseled Heinrich Bullinger, successor to Ulrich Zwingli and author of the First and Second Helvetic Confessions. It was Viret who defended Calvin in two successive heresy trials.

When Calvin was banished from Geneva in 1538, it was Viret who was recalled to the city to do the work of reconciliation and restoration. It was Viret’s persistent intercessions that eventually persuaded the council to invite Calvin to return in 1541—and it was Viret who persuaded his reluctant friend to actually accept the invitation.

Over the next two decades, Viret would serve in the flourishing Gospel work of Lausanne. He would continue to train a whole new generation of pastors, evangelists, apologists, theologians, educators, and missionaries. Whenever there was an intractable conflict or an obstinate controversy in any of the churches throughout the Swiss cantons, it was Viret who was called in to restore their purity, their peace, and their lovingkindness. He would write a raft of vital books that would shape the Reformation throughout Europe—from Scotland to Greece, from Italy to Poland, from Navarre to Moravia, from the Netherlands to Sweden. Carrying on a voluminous correspondence with frequent visits back to Geneva, he was Calvin’s best friend and most trusted advisor.

When political pressure from Bern forced Viret to flee from Lausanne in 1559, he was joined in exile by all of his fellow pastors, all of the professors of the academy, every single one of their students, and hundreds of the city’s congregants. Geneva welcomed them all with open arms. Viret was made the pastor of the largest church in the city—where his rhetorically-winsome, theologically-substantive, covenantally-minded, and expositionally-rich preaching laid enduring discipling foundations. He reconvened the Lausanne Academy, now the Genevan Academy. The city became a hive of vision, prosperity, freedom, and opportunity. Its reformational legacy was secure at long last.

Some men might be tempted to rest on their laurels. But, not Viret. When five of his French students were martyred in Provence, he turned his attentions to the vital Huguenot missionary efforts in the west. In 1568, he brought the reformation to first to Nimes, and then successively to Montpellier, Lyon, Marseilles, Aix, and Orange. He was instrumental in the conversion of Queen Jeanne d’Albret of Navarre, the mother of King Henry IV. He discipled Prince William of Orange, who helped the reformation flourish in both his French and Dutch dominions.

As the father of the Huguenot Church, Viret oversaw stupendous growth, from twelve convening churches in 1568 to more than fifteen hundred churches at the time of his death in 1571.

Over the course of his long career, Viret authored over fifty books—many of them multi-volume works. The practical ethics of his Decalogue Commentary was the guiding light of John Knox’s reforming work in Scotland. His Exposition of the Apostles Creed helped Martin Bucer craft the Thirty-Nine Articles for the English Church. His Simple Exposition of the Christian Faith and the accompanying Catechism was a direct inspiration for the Westminster divines. His Letters of Comfort to the Persecuted Church became a lifeline to Jan Comenius and the harried Husites during the Thirty-Years War. His The Christian and the Magistrate helped Nicholas von Amsdorff shape the Magdeburg Confession. And of course, all of them shaped Calvin and his magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion.

No wonder Viret was deeply beloved. To some he was known as the “Smile of the Reformation.” To others, he was the “Angel of the Reformation.”

So, ask anyone who has even the scantiest knowledge of the period, “Who was the most significant figure in Geneva’s magisterial Reformation?” and they would of course reply, “John Calvin.” But, Calvin himself would undoubtedly (and rightly) reply, “Oh, no, no, no. To be sure, it was Pierre Viret.”