Calvin and the Burning of Servetus

Upon the summit of the hill Champel, about a half hour journey from Geneva, stands a stone of granite, placed there to mark the spot where Servetus, the Spaniard was burned at the stake. There on a bright summer day of October 1553, out of a thick cloud of smoke that rose from a pile of smoldering wood, strewn with sulphur, screamed the tortured man: "Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy on me!" -- and died. In this cry we detect his blasphemy, as the reformer William Farel called to...