Who Would Try To Kill Gentle, Faithful Pierre Viret?
Pierre Viret was respected even by his opponents.
AFTER HE LEFT the Catholic Church, Pierre Viret’s first great success was to convert his home village to the views of the Protestant Reformers. Orde, Switzerland was divided between Catholics and reformers. In 1531, in the midst of this crisis, Viret returned from school in Paris and swung the town to the Reformed side.
French evangelist William Farel commanded Viret to preach the Gospel. Like Calvin when Farel placed him under a similar obligation, Viret resisted. But like Calvin, he eventually yielded. He became an outstanding preacher. It was not in his native Switzerland but in neighboring France that he had his greatest impact. For example, he converted the entire faculty of Montpellier’s medical college to Reformed views. Thousands heard him preach in Paris, Orleans, Avignon, Montauban and other cities and were won over. In fact, the Huguenot movement was largely indebted to his witness. He was the most popular Protestant preacher in sixteenth century France. But he founded no major movements and avoided all but the most essential controversies. Although he wrote close to fifty books, they never received the attention of Luther’s or Calvin’s.
Viret almost did not live to undertake this work. Catholics attempted to stab him shortly after his success in Orde. Two years later while he was in Geneva, a woman poisoned some spinach soup served to Farel, Viret, and their friend French reformer Antoine Froment. Viret almost died and his health was permanently injured. The woman confessed and implicated two priests. She was hung but the clergymen were freed after swearing they had no part in the plot.
Viret did not allow these attacks to damage him. He remained so gentle that he won the respect of many Catholics. Both Catholics and Protestants trusted him as an arbiter of their differences, and he labored to bring reconciliation between the two factions. Late in his life, Viret and eleven ministers were captured by Catholic military forces. So great was their respect for Viret, the group freed him, but executed seven of the others.
While Viret was in Lyons, France, which was in the hands of Huguenots, the Catholics regained control of the region. On this day, 27 August 1565 they ordered him out. He moved to Navarre which was ruled by the Protestant queen, Jeanne d’Albret.
As might be imagined with so gentle a man, he delighted in family. He had the joy of winning his parents to Christ. But sorrow also passed his way. His first wife and all their children died of plague; so did his second wife and two of their children. Viret lived to be sixty.
—Dan Graves
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For more on Viret, read "Forgotten Reformer" in Christian History #71 Huguenots and the Wars of Religion
For more on the Reformation and counter-Reformation consider the following DVD and print resources
This Changed Everything (stream This Changed Everything at RedeemTV)
Christian History magazine's Reformation set
or watch other free videos about the Reformation and reformers at RedeemTV.com