page_title: Protestantism in France
section_title: Later establishments
hierarchical_section_title: Protestantism in France / History / Later establishments
caption_attribution_description: English: Front page of a protestant psalm book of 1817 The real height of the page is 111mm Français&#160;: Page de garde d'un psautier protestant de 1817 hauteur réelle d'une page: 111 mm
context_page_description: Protestantism in France has existed in its various forms starting with Calvinists and Lutherans since the Protestant Reformation. John Calvin was a Frenchman, as well as numerous other Protestant Reformers including William Farel, Pierre Viret and Theodore Beza, who was Calvin's successor in Geneva. Peter Waldo was a merchant from Lyons, who founded a pre-Protestant group, the Waldensians. Martin Bucer was born a German in Alsace, which historically belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, but now belongs to France.
  Hans J. Hillerbrand in his Encyclopedia of Protestantism claims the Huguenots reached as much as 10% of the French population on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, declining to 7-8% by the end of the 16th century, and further after heavy persecution began once again with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV of France.
  Protestants were granted a degree of religious freedom following the Edict of Nantes, but it ceased with the Edict of Fontainebleau. Protestant minority has been persecuted, and a majority of Huguenots fled the country, leaving isolated communities like the one in the Cevennes region, which survives to this day.
context_section_description: In 1927 some congregations of EPCAAL branched off and established a separate Evangelical Lutheran church and synod for France and Belgium. Many Evangelical Protestant sects would be established in France in the post-WWII period, many of which would derive their liturgical styles from North American evangelical charismatic or Pentecostal movements.
caption: The Protestant psalter, 1817
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