Religion and Geneva

This evening there was an organised tour of the International Museum of the Reformation for University of Geneva Scholarship holders, followed by dinner. The museum is right in the Old Town of Geneva, behind the Saint Pierre Cathedral, whose spires can be seen from the Lake. You would think that this would make it easy to find, but as you get closer and into Old Town, it gets harder and harder as the spires are hidden from view by other buildings and narrow streets. Luckily my sense of direction didn't fail me, and I arrived for the tour with plenty of time to spare. It was really nice to leave from work and go into town while it was still daylight. Since I've been back, I've only gone in for dinner and to catch the bus for skiing. I had forgotten how pretty Geneva can be on a clear sunny day, with the surrounding snow covered mountains.

So for those who don't know much about Christianity except for the bible stories they were told in religion class in primary school like me, there are three or so main branches of the religion: Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant (and Anglican), which differ in their beliefs, practice and hierarchy. I went to an Anglican high school for a couple of years, and there I learnt that this is the Church of England that Henry VIII set up for political and social reasons, rather than theological, which in practice is fairly similar to Catholicism, but with a different hierarchy, the Pope for Catholics and the Archbishop of Canterbury for Anglicans. I know nothing about the Orthodox Church, and before this evening nothing about the Protestant Church either.

The Protestant Church started as a protest against the Catholic Church (hence the name). Many Catholics were troubled by the corruption in the Church, particularly involving the sale of indulgences, what my very biased tour guide said were misnamed ‘tickets to paradise’ as they would absolve the buyer from punishment and grant them salvation. Thinking about it now, it seems like the pardon one would receive after confessing to sin and observing the required penance, which makes sense, though to pay for that absolution does seem wrong.

Anyway, according to the museum, the main protagonists in this Reformation were Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Geneva, which at the time was not part of the Swiss Confederation. He did much work in the city, which was a haven for Protestants fleeing persecution in France. This influx of migrants doubled the number of inhabitants of the city in a period of ten years. We heard about the conversion of the church organ pipes into pots and plates to feed the newcomers, the ingenious way they made more space for all the people by raising the building roofs to fit another level in and the founding of what would become the University of Geneva, in 1559.

This fact makes 2009 the university’s 450th anniversary since its founding, which astounds me, considering the University of Melbourne celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2003, and the First Fleet landed in Botany Bay until 1788. The wealth of history in Europe is amazing and somewhat overwhelming. People have such a different sense of timescale here. Like, over dinner, we were talking about our personal histories. So, there was me, first generation Australian, whose parents migrated from Vietnam. Then there were two American students, one of whom could name the European countries of her forbearers, while the other could only say Eastern Europe. Then there was the International Relations representative at the University of Geneva, who said his Italian ancestors came to Geneva from Naples during the time of the Reformation, adding to that statement that there is hardly anybody in Geneva who is really from Geneva, like there are only twelve families in the city who can’t trace their roots back elsewhere. His family has been in Geneva for over 400 years, and he still would say he wasn’t really from the city. I say I’m from Melbourne and I haven’t even lived there my whole life. I guess I wouldn't say my family is from Melbourne though.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable evening, despite the religion lesson and the Protestant propaganda from the tour guide (it was quite hard at times to keep the arguments inside, to point out that Protestants also persecuted Catholics, and the spreading of the Reformation to different countries wasn’t always a peaceful process, and that Calvin himself was at first pressed out of Geneva before being recalled, and that in the end, Calvin and Luther disagreed and that is why today we have Lutherans and Calvinists/Presbyterians).

Oh, I also learnt about why the canton of Geneva is so small and doesn’t include the surrounding mountains, which would make natural borders of a state, and the reason (of course) is religion, that when Geneva could draw its own boundaries in a treaty, they wanted to keep it all Protestant. And that there have been efforts to merge the cantons of Vaud and Geneva, but this hasn’t happened yet due to the different histories of the regions, though it would make more sense politically and economically. Ah, all the things I would know if I spoke to locals and played attention to the local news and whatnot.