Geneva

Geneva (French Geneve), capital of the Swiss canton of the same name, celebrated for its historical and religious associations, and in particular as the seat of the reformatory labors of Calvin. The canton had, in 1860, 82,876 inhabitants, of whom 40,069 were Protestants, 42,099 Roman Catholics, 331 Dissidents, 377 Jews. During the Middle Ages Geneva was an object of dispute between the bishop of Geneva, who was an immediate feudatory of the German empire, and the count of Genevois, who ruled the adjoining province of Savoy. After the extinction of the line of the counts of Genevois, the dukes of Savoy were appointed their successors by the German emperor Sigismund (1422). Hence the claim of Savoy upon Geneva, from which the Genevans could only free themselves by alliances with the Swiss cantons of Fribourg (1519) and Berne (1526), and by the aid of the Reformation. The latter was introduced into Geneva by Farel, Fromment, and others, about 1532, and in 1535 was officially established. Being put under the ban by the bishop, the city declared the episcopal see vacant, and declared itself a republic. Calvin first came to Geneva in 1536, and after an absence of a few years returned in 1541, when he soon succeeded in making himself the temporal as well as the spiritual ruler of the town. Thus Geneva became the metropolis of Calvinism, and, as such, exercised a great influence upon all the Calvinistic churches. From 1798 to 1814 Geneva was united with France; in 1814, its territory having been enlarged by the annexation of a few Savoyan and French communes, it joined the Swiss Confederation as the 22d canton. The Reformed State Church, which in 1868 had 16 congregations and 35 ministers, has for some time been under the influence of Rationalism, and a part of the orthodox members have therefore organized a Free Evangelical Church, which has a celebrated theological school, several of whose professors, as Merle d'Aubigne and Gaussen, have established a great theological reputation throughout the Protestant world. — Thourel, Histoire de Geneve (Geneva, 1863); Cherbuliez, Geneve et les Genevois (Geneva, 1868). (A.J.S.)