Calvinist Cologne: The Presbyterial-Synodal Network and the Struggle for Toleration, 1566-1600

This paper argues that the synodal network, courtesy of Dutch refugees fleeing Spanish persecution in the late 1560s, gave the German-speaking Reformed congregation in Cologne the tools they required to plant deep roots in a Catholic city. Through mutual aid and solidarity, these roots enabled the congregation to survive its infancy and emerge in a strong position by the outbreak of the Cologne War in 1583. After the war, as a result of the synodal network, the Reformed congregation in Cologne managed to secure a form of ‘implicit toleration’ from the city magistracy. This toleration was characterized neither by magistrates turning a blind eye to their activities, nor by sharing of religious spaces, but rather it came as a consequence of the difficulty the magistracy had in excising the congregation from the city.Master of Art