
In 2022 we took a cruise along the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers in Europe to celebrate 62 years of marriage. We had scheduled it for our 60th in 2020, but the Covid pandemic meant delay for two years. We stopped at various locations in Germany and Austria, one of which was Heidelberg. After we had lunch in a local restaurant we had some free time. Our son and granddaughter went off to do their own thing, and Alice and I, as was our custom, found a church to explore. It was just any church; we were not looking for any particular one, but we found one in the center of town that looked interesting. It was the church of the Holy Spirit. What we didn’t know was what great historical event took place inside this church.
During the Reformation in Germany Lutherans were joined by Calvinists as the followers of the Geneva reformer spread forth all over the continent. Lutherans and Calvinists taught much of the same doctrine with some differences. Those theological variants were more the result of Philipp Melanchthon and his school of thought than of Luther. These differences did present a problem, and there was much agitation for a common confession that would unite members of the two Protestant groups, if not in every particular, at least in essentials.
Rising to the occasion were two young men, both in their twenties, Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus. Ursinus, then 28, had been trained by Melanchthon and was a professor at the famous University of Heidelberg. Olevianus, 26, was a gifted preacher who did the final editing, whereas Ursinus had provided the first draft of the original work which he based on Paul’s letter to the Romans. Heidelberg had become a center of Reformed (Calvinistic) thought, but there were many Lutherans and some Zwinglians living there.
Under the direction of Professor Ursinus, the entire faculty of the theology college of Heidelberg University met in 1563 in this church which we happened upon: the Church of the Holy Spirit. There they put together the work as they revised, and greatly enlarged Ursinus’ first draft which was then published in its final German edition by Olevianus. The work was sponsored and subsidized by the wise Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke Frederick III. It has become one of the most loved, cherished and utilized confessions of the Reformed faith.
And as we were looking about the church, we came upon a plaque on the wall which

stated that in this church in 1563, the theological faculty of the University of Heidelberg assembled and produced this famous catechism. Here I stood at the very place where this great document of faith was created.
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