The Life of John Calvin John Calvin was born into a middle class family in the early 1500's to Gerard Calvin and Jeanne Le Franc. His father was a lawyer for the Roman Catholic Church. His father's relations to the church initiated John's religious career. Calvin studied both theology and law and many different institutions in both America and Europe. By 1533, he had converted to Protestantism. In 1536, Calvin published a book describing his basic ideas on Religion called Institutes of the Christian Religion. This book presents the underlying beliefs of the futuristic Calvinists and the subsequent Presbyterians. Many of these