Dr Paul Allen

The whole of France is bathed in the blood of innocent people and covered with dead bodies. The air is filled with the cries and groans of nobles and commoners, women and children, slaughtered by the hundreds without mercy." So read a Genevan diplomatic dispatch from the autumn of October of 1572 in a description of what would come to be known as the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre , one of the most bloody and horrifying episodes in the history of the church. This awful event is captured in a painting from the era, “Le massacre de la Saint-Barthelemy ,” the lone surviving work from artist Francois Dubois , an eyewitness to the massacres. It hangs today in Musee cantonal des Beaux-Arts, in Lausanne, Switzerland and captures the ugly violence that for a time almost seemed to stamp out the spread of Protestantism in one of Europe's greatest kingdoms. This, Dubois' painting, is the next of the twenty-five objects through which we can trace the history of Christianity.

Oil painting of a young John Calvin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland was the work of Arducius de Faucigny, the prince-bishop of the Diocese of Geneva.  The building's earliest construction dates from the 12th century, but wars, fires, renovations and additions have often changed its look and shape.  Though today it is the home of a congregation of the Swiss Reformed Church, it will always be known as John Calvin's church, for it was here that the great Reformer preached day-after-day and year-after-year. And there within St. Pierre's, is John Calvin's chair, the next of the twenty-five objects through which we can trace the history of Christianity. In 1517, Martin Luther had sparked Reformation with his Ninety-Five Theses. In the years that followed, his seditious new teachings quickly spread throughout Europe so that Christianity was now split into two broad streams: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. 

Image via Wikipedia Each day, two of Geneva 's ministers came to check on Theodore Beza . The old reformer was dearly loved and they were concerned for his failing health. On this day, Sunday, October 13, 1605, the sick man felt well enough to dress. Theodore asked his visitors, "Is the city in full safety and quiet?" He was assured that all was well. Moments later, he lost all strength and collapsed to the floor. Friends gathered and prayed at his bedside as he passed peacefully away within a few minutes. The last of the great reformers was dead. His had been a life of much sorrow, hard work and grueling adventure. Theodore Beza was born in Burgundy in 1519, the son of a county bailiff. His father had marked out one course for him, but it seemed God had another. At nine years of age he was sent to study with a famous Greek scholar Melchior Wolmar . Wolmar's sympathy with the Lutherans rubbed off on his pupil. What fruit this would bear was not yet apparent. Bez