French Confession of Faith

The French Confession of Faith (Latin: Confessio Gallicana, French: Confession de La Rochelle), also known as the Gallic Confession or the Confession of La Rochelle, is a Reformed confession of faith, the official doctrinal standard of the Reformed Church of France. The Confession was adopted at the first national synod in 1559.
Initially, the French Reformed Protestants, also called Huguenots, had neither an official creed nor centralised organisation. A brief statement of doctrinal principles ("biblical truths") was included in their editions of the Bible, the translation and publication of which was undertaken by Protestants in the middle of the 16th century. In 1534, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published a French translation of the New Testament. In 1552, Robert Estienne published the Bible and New Testament in Latin, and in 1553, J. Gerard published a French translation of the Bible.
After the Peace of Augsburg (1555), Reformed congregations no longer needed to operate underground and thus grew to around 400,000 members. They organised in various parts of France between 1555 and 1558 with formal organisation and regular services. The need for a single, centralised church organisation and common confessional document arose. In 1558, doctrinal differences arose among the Reformed churches of Poitiers, leading a visiting Parisian pastor, Antoine de la Roche Chandieu (1534–1591), to propose the convening of a synod with the intention of producing a common confession and book of discipline upon his return to Paris. In 1559, the first national French Reformed synod met in Paris, at which the two documents were produced.
All this activity took place in conditions of strict secrecy. As early as 1555, Henry II issued an edict which mandated the death penalty for all those guilty of heresy, threatening the Huguenots with burning at the stake. After the conclusion of the Italian Wars with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in March–April 1559, the king set about eradicating heresy with particular zeal. In 1559, a special commission (Chambre ardente) was established in each parlement to monitor the execution of the edicts on heretics. Nevertheless, on May 25–28, 1559, the first national Synod of the Reformed Church of France was held in Paris under the chairmanship of the pastor of the Parisian congregation, Jean Morel, a student and friend of John Calvin. The exact number of delegates to the synod is unknown.
The Confession was based on a statement of faith sent by the Reformed churches of France to John Calvin in 1557 during a period of persecution. Working from this, and probably with the help of Theodore Beza and Pierre Viret, Calvin and his pupil Antoine de la Roche Chandieu wrote a confession in French for them in the form of thirty-five articles. The Confession was to be presented with a letter to the King Charles IX of France that vindicated their principles.
When persecution subsided, twenty delegates representing seventy-two churches met secretly in Paris from 23 to 27 May 1559. With François de Morel as moderator, the delegates produced a Constitution of Ecclesiastical Discipline and a Confession of Faith. Calvin's thirty-five articles were used in the Confession but were revised and extended to forty articles (the first two articles were expanded to six articles).
The Confession begins with the subtitle "Confession of Faith, made in one accord by the French people, who desire to live according to the purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. A.D. 1559." Each article is accompanied by references to the Bible. The structure is similar to Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) and Genevan Catechism (1542/1545), being divided into the following four sections.
On 10 July 1559, Henry II died in Paris. In 1560, the Confession was presented in Amboise to the new king of France, Francis II. A preface was added to the document—an request for the king to cease the persecution of Protestants. However, on 5 December 1560, the king, who had not yet reached the age of 17, suddenly died in Orléans. A year later, in 1561, Theodore Beza introduced the Confession to the new king of France, Charles IX, at a religious conference in Poitiers. A few years later, the Confession received approval in Germany, and was recognised by German synods at Wesel (Westphalia) in 1568 and Emden (Lower Saxony) in 1571.
The Piedmontese Waldensians, who had already affiliated themselves with the Reformed churches in 1532, presented the French Confession as their own confession of faith to the Duke of Savoy in 1560. The 1655 shortened and revised form of the French Confession is still considered a confession of faith of the Waldensians today.
The Belgic Confession (1561) is closely related to the French Confession; the author Guido de Brès closely followed and replicated the order of doctrines in his confession.
In 1571, the seventh national synod of the French Reformed churches was held at La Rochelle, which had become the center of the French Reformation. Among the honored guests present were Jeanne III, Queen of Navarre, her son Henry of Navarre (later King Henry IV), Prince Louis of Condé, Admiral Gaspard Coligny and other high-ranking French Huguenots. The text of the French Confession was read to all the representatives of the congregations and guests present at the synod, and then signed by them. After this solemn procedure, the Gallican Confession received a second name—the Confession of La Rochelle.
The Confession remained significant in the Reformed Church of France until the 19th century.