John Calvin Conference

Living in union with Christ in today’s world:

John Calvin and Ignatius Loyola

Friday 8th / Saturday 9th October, 2010

John Calvin, French Protestant Reformer, and Ignatius Loyola, Spanish founder of the Society of Jesus, were for a brief time contemporaries in the Collège de Montaigu of the University of Paris. St Patrick’s College, Maynooth will host a conference that will bring something of the inheritance of both these foundational figures into dialogue. Both Calvin and Loyola were Sorbonne men. Six of the founding fathers of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, were professors of the Sorbonne.

John Calvin, one of the major figures of the Reformation, was born in Noyon, north of Paris, in 1509. The 500th anniversary of his birth is being marked world-wide in churches of the Reformed tradition through theological conferences, special services and other events. St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, is happy to host such a conference on 8-9th October, 2010 to mark the Reformer’s birth and to explore through open and honest dialogue, the message, influence and legacy of this great doctor of the Church whose legacy reached us in Ireland through his honoured place in the Irish Presbyterian tradition.  

College days have a habit of bringing unlikely people together. As Calvin was nearing the end of his studies at the Collège de Montaigu of the University of Paris, a new student arrived there. He was what would be termed today a ‘mature student.’ Ignatius Loyola was some 18 years older than John. An ex-soldier, he had undergone a conversion experience while recovering from wounds received at the battle of Pamplona. Did they know one another well in the College? We do not know. Their paths certainly brought them in significantly different directions. They would become, each in a different way, significant shapers of a new Europe that was then emerging.

Calvin and Loyola were students of the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, also traces its origin back to the Sorbonne. When the University was closed due to the French Revolution, several of the professors of the Faculty fled to Ireland where they were welcomed as the first members of the teaching staff at the newly-founded Royal College of St Patrick in 1795.

Our conference will attempt to reflect some of the important themes that were common to the thinking of both John Calvin and Ignatius Loyola. However they may have differed from one another, they were united in a common vision of total dedication to Christ. The title chosen for the conference, ‘Living in union with Christ in today’s world: the contributions of John Calvin and Ignatius Loyola’, seeks to unpack in a popular and user-friendly manner some aspects of the heritage of the two. Among the speakers are some professors in Union Theological College, Belfast (Presbyterian) and St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (Roman Catholic).