"As its name implies, the Reformed tradition grew out of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. The Reformed churches consider themselves to be the Catholic Church reformed. The movement originated with the efforts of Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) of Zurich and John Calvin (1509-1564) of Geneva. Although the Reformed movement depended on many Protestant leaders for its inception, Calvin's tireless work as a writer, preacher, teacher, and social and ecclesiastical reformer provided a substantial body of literature and an ethos from which the Reformed tradition grew. Today, the Reformed churches are a multicultural, multiethnic, and multinational phenomenon. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Reformed Churches contains a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and more than 800 cross-referenced dictionary entries on leaders, personalities, events, facts, movements, and beliefs."--Jacket